Picasso portraits give a fascinating overview

Self-portrait with Palette

When you live in a large city it’s arguably the way of things that you will not know about every cultural event taking place, but even allowing for that, it was a surprise to realise, at the start of this week, that I’d been unaware of a major exhibition in London.

The National Portrait Gallery, in conjunction with the Museu Picasso, Barcelona, has been staging Picasso Portraits, which ends tomorrow.

With little time left, The Other Half and I booked tickets for last night and duly made our way there after work. And after all, given the Catalan giant’s observation that “art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life,” what better way could there be to begin a weekend?

It’s a career-spanning collection that takes us from the end of the 19th century to the 1970s.

Works on display include a small number of photographic portraits to a sketch on a paper napkin to fragments on cards to works in oil to sculptures. It’s an excellent way to get an idea of the range of Picasso’s work and styles.

Self-portrait in charcoal and chalk

The earliest works include some of the most fascinating, including two self portraits – one, sporting a wig from 1897 and the other, in charcoal and chalk from 1889-1900.

Both have an intensity about them, but the latter (reproduction does not do justice to the light of it) particularly caught my eye.

It is difficult with Picasso – perhaps more than with most other artists – to separate artist and art. There is a sense of raw animal power about the subject in both these; of a force of nature that gives you an insight into what he created.

Close by is a 1901 portrait of the French art critic and writer Gustave Coquiot that seems to nod toward Fauvism in its use of green in the subject’s skin, and with a dollop of impasto at the shirt’s throat drawing the eye.

From a personal perspective, I ‘get’ the early Cubist works, but I can’t say I ‘like’ them, with their de-humanising analysis and the muddy palette, though the Head of a Woman bust is more interesting than the canvases.

Far more revealing, for me, are works such as Self-portrait with Palette from 1906, where we see a recognisable style emerging, that combines the classical and the primitive – and leaves us with a sense of the emotion.

Later rooms include one with a range of portraits of Olga Picasso – from the naturalistic to the Cubist.

Portrait of Olga Picasso

And here is the perfect chance to highlight a prime bugbear about this exhibition: the curator’s notes next to each work.

In one exhibit, sitting next to a sketch showing a friend of Picasso in a brothel, the words talk of the friend “carousing with a drunken prostitute”. Well, “carousing” is one way to put it.

Similarly, in a later work – a drawing of the artist Raphael having sex while the pope draws curtains aside to watch – there is no mention of the act, but we are informed that Raphael was known to have an ‘amorous’ character.

This terror of mentioning S.E.X. is only one aspect of the issue: throughout, we’re told what Picasso was thinking as he worked.

Now, it is a fair bet that, when an artist is, say, in a strained relationship, that might show up in their work, but asserting such connections as fact is irritating at best.

However, that is what happened in the room dedicated to Olga – Woman in a Hat (Olga) from 1935 is pretty much definitively described as making a sarcastic comment on his wife’s love of hats, yet also as showing her in such a way as to pity her even as their relationship broke apart.

Woman in a Hat (Olga)

Portrait of Olga Picasso from 1923 has a generally classical approach, yet the eyes have something of the mask-like look of Self-portrait with Palette – but even here the curator is straining to tell us that the formality suggests the relationship was already in trouble.

It’s hardly rocket science to suppose that a self-portrait from 1972 – effectively a skull with a piece missing – was influenced by a sense of his own mortality (he died the following year) but do we really need this stating as though we are incapable of making the links on our own? Indeed, I’m going to suggest that such notes detract from the power of just such a work.

I never use audio guides in galleries, in the UK or abroad, precisely because I think that they get in the way of you really seeing the works.

It’s entirely possible that I might miss something that the in a painting or sculpture that had not been upmost in the artist had in mind at the time of its creation, but then that personal experience of art is part of the ongoing process of creativity; part of what makes art more than imply objects.

Self-portrait, 1972

Yet on occasion, the notes skate over what many people might not know, which could be said briefly and might add something.

In another room, for instance, two notes mention Matisse, yet with no mention of the sense of rivalry between them – most of it on Picasso’s part (see Hilary Spurling’s excellent biography of the French artist), thus not giving any real sense of the claim that the colours of one painting are a deliberate echoing of Matisse.

The other problem here is the lack of any works from the Blue Period. It feels like an obvious gap in what otherwise is a successful use of one type of art to give that career perspective.

All this said, there is plenty to delight – not least some of the more informal works Picasso executed for friends, including a 1957 sketch of the French composer and pianist, Francis Poulenc, which shows how he could get away with caricaturing his friends.

Unlike some exhibitions, this is also not so long as to exhaust. You still have time – just about – to catch Picasso Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery in London. It finishes tomorrow – and then we have until 2018 for Tate Modern’s just-announced Picasso blockbuster.

National Portrait Gallery

Marlene Dumas – the image as challenge

Great Britain

If ‘better late than never’ was the case with my recent visit to the Goya exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery, then it was ever more true with a Friday evening trip to see an exhibition at the Tate Modern.

Marlene Dumas: The Image as Burden, has been on since February and finishes tomorrow.

I had half thought of visiting, but the first few months of the year have been manic, for various reasons. And I admit that, against that background, a combination of not being familiar with the artist and feeling slightly put off by the publicity image used, I hadn’t got past that half thought.

Rejects

Fortunately, when visiting the Tate Modern last week to see the Sonia Delaunay retrospective, I’d picked up enough visual information to decide that I needed to see the exhibition.

And so it was that, after work on Friday, The Other Half and I headed back to the South Bank, for what was probably my first major exhibition by a living artist.

Dumas was born in born in 1953 in Cape Town, South Africa, leaving the country for Amsterdam in 1976, the year of the Soweto uprising.

Amy Blue

Here, the Tate has gathered together a body of work that encompasses her career to date – a career that clearly illustrates the influence of that background.

Dumas doesn’t paint from life, but from photographs: some she takes herself, others that she sources from various media.

These are far from being copies, however, but merely a starting point. And where the images remain figurative and, in cases of famous people, entirely recognisable, Dumas imbues them with a power and haunting quality that raises many questions – not least, how we look at our fellow human beings.

We begin with Rejects, a series of ink and graphite ‘portrait heads’, which includes the image used for the exhibition publicity material and which, within this wider context, makes sense.

These are not ‘rejected’ people, but primarily created from works that were initially rejected or incomplete, and the set was inspired by her home country’s ‘reject stores’ where you can by clothes with faults.

The Teacher

Once you know that, you start to understand what she’s exploring. Because exploration is what it is – there is nothing polemical about Dumas’s work: it is a starting point for contemplation or discussion.

One of the most perfect examples of this is in the two canvases that form Great Britain (1995-97). One is taken from a fashion shoot with Naomi Campbell and the second, from a royal portrait of Princess Diana.

Seen as a single piece – not initially the artist’s intention – they create a serious dialogue about ideas and representations of femininity and female sexuality. And because neither of them shows a representation of women that is highly sexualised, it makes that dialogue all the more interesting.

The Widow

In The Painter (1994) we are presented with a picture of the artist’s young daughter, hands covered in bright paint, a petulant stare challenging the viewer.

Part of what struck me about this was the simplicity of the grey sweep of paint that creates the child’s lower face, giving it that petulant expression. Indeed, it brought to mind the simplicity of Goya’s washes in the pictures I’d seen just a few short weeks ago.

Early this century, Dumas turned to more obviously political subjects. Two versions of a painting, The Woman of Algiers (2001) and The Trophy (2013) show a young woman being held, naked, for cameras.

Against the Wall

The Widow (2013) shows Pauline Lumumba walking bare-breasted through Kinshasa in 1961, in an act of mourning after the murder of her husband, Patrice, the first democractically-elected prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Against the Wall (2010) shows Jewish men waiting to go to prayer, standing alongside the Israeli security barrier – a visual reminder of the Wailing Wall.

The same room houses another large painting, The Mother (2009) – this time showing an anonymous woman in black, kneeling before an empty grave, with a framed picture of a young man near her. She is surrounded by more empty graves.

The Mother

She takes a classical theme of art in Forsaken, with a crucifixion, which has the Christ on the cross utterly alone, and is hung here in the same room as Great Men, a series of delicate portraits of notable gat men from both 19^th and 20^th centuries, which was created in response to attitudes towards homosexuality in Russia, and was first exhibited there in 2014.

One room contains a number of works that explored the dynamic of the naked figure (male and female) in art, pin-ups and pornography.

Again, this challenges the viewer to consider precisely how they view.

For me, The Teacher (Sub A) (1987) strikes a note of great familiarity, showing as it does a conventional school photograph (how I remember them!), while her portrait of Amy Winehouse, Amy – Blue (2011) is another striking work.

Her palette is muted, her sense of scale vast. But Dumas illustrates the power of the figurative in a world that sometimes seems to have forgotten it.

She paints terrorists and suspect, victims and more, constantly challenging us to consider our relationships with those pictures. Her work is full of questions about life, death, sexuality and power.

And one of Dumas’s greatest strengths is that she so carefully avoids the polemical; she doesn’t patronise the viewer, but instead invites you to consider.

Better late than never, as I said. This was a challenging exhibition that has left me with much to mull over. I’m very glad I made it.

Singing the Blues (again) and why FFP has nothing to do with fairness

The god that is Vincent lifts the trophy

The domestic football season is almost over, but oh my goodness, what a season it’s been!

More open than any for years, with three teams in with a chance of claiming the Premier League title until only a matter of days before the concluding round of matches.

As a City fan of 40 years (this year!) and counting – I am, of course, utterly delighted: not just with a second title in two years, but a first ever double, having lifted the League Cup in March.

And I got to be there on both occasions and I screamed myself daft – great catharsis – and I’m still feeling the sheer joy. Hey – that’s football for you.

Fortunately too, for health reasons, the final day of the season wasn’t as nerve-shreddingly tense as 2012.

The season was not just about City, though.

Goodness – how I wish I was a betting person and had thought to put money on a Madrid derby for the Champion’s League final.

And no look back at the domestic season would be complete without recognition of David Moyes’s achievement in finally getting Everton above Manchester United in the table.

 Chris Hughton

It was also good to see Arsenal win the FA Cup – not because I have any sort of issue with Hull or Steve Bruce (in my days as a pro sports hackette, I interviewed him, and he’s a decent bloke), but because it helped stuff some of his words back down José Mourinho’s over-sized gob.

Banter is one thing – the utter lack of respect he shows on a regular basis is quite another. And as for his “19th century football”, I’m no fan of Allardici’s style, but Chelsea can hardly claim to be an unrelenting a joy on the eye.

On the subject of respect and talking to managers, I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to all those I seem to have jinxed this term by taking their pictures.

After photographing an event at Westminster for Show Racism the Red Card early last December, Steve Lomas and Chris Hughton have lost their jobs, while Alan Pardew seemed to go into meltdown a short while later.

West Ham fans may – or may not – be interested to know that I also photographed Sam Allardyce.

I should add that, as far as that evening was concerned, all were completely charming, as were all the people I came into contact with.

Ashton-under-Lyne's very own Gordon Taylor

And a special mention for PFA boss Gordon Taylor. Back when I was a sports ed, he’d give me the time of the day and would take my calls, yet I’d never met him face to face. It was a pleasure.

Of course the season also ended with news of UEFA’s sanctions against those European clubs judged to have fallen foul of the new financial fair play (FFP) rules.

The two biggest clubs affected were City and Paris St-Germain – champions in their respective countries for this term just gone.

Now it is, I should point out, entirely coincidental that both clubs are currently owned by swarthy Middle Eastern types. After all, UEFA has frequently illustrated just how seriously it treats racism rearing its ugly head anywhere near the beautiful game.

Indeed, only last February, it fined Atletico Madrid €10,000 euros (£8,270) and ordered a partial stadium closure after fans racially abused Manchester City youth players in a match.

Comparisons with UEFA’s €100,000 fine and a one-match ban for Nicklas Bendtner in 2012, after he sported sponsored undies, are fundamentally flawed.

Steve Lomas, Sir Trevor Brooking and Sam Allardyce

After all: that was about money. Or more importantly, about not upsetting big business when it sponsors the game.

Now the thing about FFP, in theory at least, is that it’s supposed to avoid any more cases of clubs living so far beyond their means that they go bust as a result.

Which is a perfectly laudable aim.

However, neither City nor PSG are living above their means.

You can object all you like to those clubs being owned by foreigners, to those foreigners being Middle Eastern, to owners being richer than Croesus, to the state of football in general or to the moon being made out of cheese, but it doesn’t change the simple fact that the owners of those clubs are wealthy enough that they’re not likely to go broke any time soon, no matter how much they spend, and certainly not as long as the oil is flowing.

Rachel Yankey

Indeed, in City’s case, the entire Etihad Campus project is seeing a massive regeneration of an area of Manchester that has been derelict since the massive deindustrialisation of the 1980s – and not just with facilities for the club, but also for local people, including housing.

And – hardly unimportant – a shed-load of new jobs, with a commitment that close to 100% will go to local people.

All that's without mentioning that it represents a long-term, sustainable model for the club, by creating a world-class academy along the lines of that at Barcelona.

None of this suggests that Sheikh Mansour is about to pull the plug and run away, leaving the club to die because he’s got bored.

The problem with FFP – and casting aside cynicism for a moment, let’s just say that it really was meant to stop another Portsmouth – what it actually does is go a long way to closing the door between an existing European elite and those who might aspire to join it.

It’s a little like the UK and US rabbiting on about protectionist policies – after using the very same approach to initially build their own economies.

Alan Pardew surprises SRTRC’s own Ged Grebby

In terms of domestic UK football, there is not a single winner of the English title for a considerable length of time that has not had to buy players.

If you want to talk of ‘buying titles’, then Blackburn and Jack Walker are a perfect example.

Manchester United and Chelsea have spent considerable sums – as have Liverpool – including on wages (infographic here that might surprise you).

After the ‘golden generation’ of Fergie’s Fledglings, United have frequently brought new talent to the club – and broken the British transfer record in so doing.

And then there’s the idea that Arsenal don’t spend money – that they ‘do it right’ – a rather romantic perception that is actually rubbished by looking at the facts.

Having won the title in 1988-89 and 1990-91 under George Graham, the Gunners then endured a bit of a drought.

Arsène Wenger took over the managerial hot seat in 1996 after the 14-month reign of Bruce Rioch had been followed by the brief caretakerships of Stewart Houston and Pat Rice.

Speaker John Bercow, Rachel Yankey and Gordon Taylor

The previous year, under Rioch, the club had made the marquee signing of Denis Bergkamp for £7.5m. The following year, Patrick Vieira was brought in for £3.5m, and in 1997, Emmanuel Petit joined for £2.5m and Marc Overmars for £5.5.

Adjusting for inflation, that’s £12,581,338.70 for Bergkamp, £5,733,350.00 for Vieira, £3,972,000.00 for Petit and £8,738,400.00 for Overmars.

In 1995, the English record transfer fee was £7m – paid by Manchester United to Newcastle for Andy Cole – until that Bergkamp deal.

Arsenal went on to win the title in 1997-98, 2001-02 and 2003-04. They continued to be both a buying and a selling club in that period, including, in 1999, spending a new club record of £11m to bring Thierry Henry to north London from Juve.

A list of British tranfer records makes for interesting reading, although it’s far from complete.

It doesn’t, for instance, mention the £42m deal that brought Mesut Özil to Arsenal last summer – not least because the British record has been smashed out of sight by the fees paid to English clubs by Real for, first, Ronaldo and then Gareth Bale.

By 2000, Barça were willing to stump up £32m for Overmars and Petit combined, a week after Luis Figo had left the club for Real for £37.2m. At the time, other top fees in global terms were Hernan Crespo – Parma to Lazio for £36m – and Christian Vieri – £31m to move to  Inter from Lazio.

Those figures also illustrate just where the market was pushing up transfer fees most.

Now none of this is intended as a ‘dig’ at any club.

But it shows quite clearly that the reality is that no club that challenges for domestic titles in the UK – let alone wishes to challenge in European competition – is likely to do so without substantial spending.

It also illustrates one reason why Arsenal have failed to win another title for some years.

If one really wanted to look at financial issues, perhaps one should ask why UEFA has managed not a whisper as a club such as Manchester United was bought in a way that places it in greater risk.

One could, if one were so inclined, consider the role of agents in creating transfer inflation.

My solution to that would – in UK terms at least – to have PFA-appointed reps available to help any player needing help with any form of contract negotiations.

It would go a long way to cutting out the culture of agents shit stirring to make money for themselves off the back of the talents of any players in their stables.

But since that seems unlikely to happen in the near future, remember this: spending money that you have is worth a £50m fine.

Abusing young, black players because of the colour of their skins comes in at £8,270.

Find out more here about Show Racism the Red Card

Just to live up to my name!

A touch Bill Sykes, perhaps? Well, The Other Half did think it "spooky and Dickensian", and it isn't Nancy, that's for certain.

The new avatar was one of a series of projects undertaken on a remarkably busy day off.

There was shopping and washing first – both of which had been missed at the weekend because of a hop to Salford for a meeting, followed by attendance at Old Trafford to watch the Rugby League Super League Grand Final in the flesh for the first time.

Which was enjoyable enough in its own right: for those of you who don't know, Leeds Rhinos beat Warrington Wolves to retain the title.

It was an uncompromising affair – for goodness sake, Warrington's Paul Wood had a testicle ruptured by someone's knee early in the second half, but played on until the 57th minute. It was removed in hospital later that night.

Leeds deserved their victory: they had far more invention and variety, and the Wolves' ill discipline cost them dear, as well as their over-reliance on what legendary commentator Eddie Waring would have described as the "up and under".

I do want to add a comment on Hayley Westenra, the singer hired to lead the crowd in the pre-match singing of Jerusalem (well, there are still a few of those "dark, Satanic mills" nearby). But while she sounds much better on YouTube, her performance at The Swamp left me wondering what the fuss was about.

And Haley, love: if you're going to walk down a red carpet, don't wear fuschia – they clash dreadfully.

The trip's food was nothing to write home about, so I won't. Although I should say: Chiquito – nachos do not benefit from sitting in a puddle of liquid.

Anyway, back from The Dark Side (I had warned The Other Half as the tram had taken us from Piccadilly to Salford Quays), the remainder of Sunday was spent doing little, followed by a day of playing Occupy the Sofa yesterday, aided and abetted by the cats, as we hid away from a grim, grey day.

Today, fortunately, dawned bright and clear. And so, after nipping up to Broadway Market, it was a case of getting down to some autumn cleaning in the garden.

Over the last couple of weekends (preceding the one just gone, of course), we'd done damned well to do most of the garden clearing.

I'd pruned roses properly for the first time, together with the jasmine, which runs rampant. I'd trimmed and tidied, while The Other Half had nailed plastic strips against the base of the fence that runs along three sides of the garden, in the hope that this will prove a good snail defence mechanism.

He'd also used the same stuff to create deeper 'beds' around the base of the pyracantha, the jasmine, the rose and the bay tree.

Today, I emptied the pots that needed emptying (well, apart from the tomatoes, which will be done this weekend), took down the frames for the beans and cleared all the remains of the beans away.

And then, as if that wasn't enough, I took the riddle and cleared about two square metres of the rest of the bean bed of stones and other debris that I don't want to be around when I extend my planting next year. There's loads more to do, but it's not a task you rush at.

With all that done, it was time for a bit of long-planned photography.

On a technical level, it was the Canon 40D with a Sigma macro lens and a Manfrotto tripod. Matters were changed a tad by the discovery that my release cable doesn't fit this model – which tells you how often I use such an accessory.

Lighting was simply the lighting in the hall, plus a small lamp.

No make-up – except eyebrow pencil, because they're getting a little light.

Plain t-shirt, leather jacket, my most recently acquired hat, 20 minutes of attempts and half an hour of photoshopping (no airbrushing the face, though) and voila! The new avatar for all social media was ready to go.

Whether I caught something of the style or not, the influence was Irving Penn, the American photographer who died in 2009, and whose work formed an exhibition, a year later, at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

The idea of self portraiture is fascinating. I've not done many, but they do tend to surprise you in ways that seeing other people's pictures of you don't. There's an intimacy that is completely different.

Anyway, in this case, all that's missing is a cudgel, a dog and a burst of "strong men tremble when they hear it!" from a certain Dickensian musical.

Okay; maybe not.

* Click on the photo to see a larger version (if you want).

I have a camera

Last week in Bournemouth was an unusual conference from a personal, photographic perspective: given the amount of extra social media work our team was doing, I wasn’t slated for any work snapping.

That, of course, had one massive advantage: it meant that my bags were lighter, as I decided to do without an DSLR for the trip.

But it still managed to be an interesting week photographically.

First, because it offered the first official uses of a couple of pictures I’d taken properly: one was a portrait of Neville Lawrence (see below), which was ripped off in 10 seconds at best, with a crush forming around.


I like to think I captured a sense of the quiet dignity of the man.

The second was of Eleanor Smith, the UNISON president for the last year, whose term ended at the close of conference.

For that, I’d had far more time than I’m used to getting, and was fairly chuffed with the result.


When I'd originally processed it on my super duper screen at work, one colleague, walking past, had glanced and assumed that it was Michelle Obama, demanding to know how come I'd got a picture of her!


I'm very happy with the glamour of the shot – but it's not 'weak' glamour, so to speak. Eleanor is a woman who makes everything she wears look like Chanel (yet she's a grandmother, for goodness sake!) but it combines glamour and strength. There's nothing passive or submissive about this shot.


I'm really proud of it.

But away from any such ‘official’ photography I was left, for the week, with my iPhone.

As usual, I was photographing my food – I posted one result earlier this week). But there are always other things that are worth snapping too, especially when you’re away.

As I mentioned not long ago, I’ve noticed that I’ve become rather fond of photographing flowers, although it never started out as a deliberate thing – and indeed, it’s not any sort of a ‘project’ even now.

Using the iPhone with an eye on something more than a snapshot for memory’s sake is an interesting challenge.

On the one hand, the most obvious advantage is its very size and portability. I was never without it, so I was never without a camera.

On the other hand, while the inbuilt camera is remarkably good (I’m still on the third generation, having refused to upgrade because the camera is decent) there is no adjustable zoom or lighting or anything else.

If you have good light, then it can produce remarkably good pictures.

Picture framing can be a tad awkward – certainly if you’re pointing it in a direction where you’re not actually looking into the screen – meaning that ‘straight on’ doesn’t always work as you want it to.


But all in all, it’s not impossible to get interesting results with a phone camera.

There are really big questions that phone cameras raise. Indeed, I'd go further than that and say that modern communications technology as a whole has massive ramifications for society as a whole – see Leveson, for a start.


The British media, as a whole, is trying to work out what it can provide/sell to the consumer – that's us. Increasingly, it's sensation and gossip.

And local stories that, in all honesty, would not have got even near a national daily only a few years ago.


But that's the world we live in. And 'citizen journalism' is an offshoot. With real journalists either dumped or made to turn a few tweets into a story, we might come to regret that. But that's the way it is, at present, in the UK at least.


But setting that aside, there are things that you can do with a mobile phone – and they don't always have to be  snapshots for the sake of memory.


They're not works of art, but I include a couple of last week's examples for your delectation and delight. As a slight technical note – the flower photographs (taken on my phone) have had very little done with them).

Taffy

It's quite possible that nobody in London actually knows Taffy's real name.

'Taffy' is a bit like 'Jock' for a Scot or 'Paddy' for an Irishman. But that's what he tells people to call him.

Unsurprisingly, Taffy was born and brought in Wales, in 'The Valleys'. At school, he was repeatedly rapped across the knuckles with a ruler by the teacher – because he was left-handed.

After school, he followed his father into the mine. And he worked there until the 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher's government closed down the mining industry and threw hundreds of thousands onto the scrapheap of unemployment without considering or caring about the consequences.

Taffy went into the construction industry. Now his body is close to breaking. His doctors say he needs surgery or he'll be in a wheelchair within a few years. But the casualisation of construction in the past few decades means that, if he does that, he'll have little chance of getting a job after long recuperation. He has no private pension. So he's ploughing on regardless.

His wife still lives in Wales. The work he can get keeps him away from home during the week. If he's working in London, he stays in a room above a pub in the east of the city. He has a couple of pints at night, often sitting at the bar looking utterly weary, and then quietly departs to get some rest.

This is modern, civilised Britain.