An exhibition of prints by Pablo Picasso curated by Sivim Naqvi, who brought the artworks from Hong Kong, was displayed at the Gandhara Art Gallery, Karachi. They offered to a discerning audience, a glimpse of what was perhaps one of the happiest periods of the artist’s life spent in the south of France in the 1940s.

Born in Malaga, Spain in 1881, throughout his life Picasso inspired the direction of art, constantly ‘re-inventing himself’ and working ceaselessly until his death at the age of 92. The artist’s experimental visions of sculpture, painting, printmaking and ceramics viewed in museums and travelling exhibitions, still hold the world in thrall.

Picasso settled in Paris in 1901 and joined the stimulating band of young artists that created the exciting atmosphere of the art events of those times. He explored a wide variety of styles and along with Georges Braque; he established Cubism and initiated collage.

The artist’s romantic affairs were as dramatic as his vocation, and often his models were the women in his life. After the liberation of Paris in 1944, Picasso met the beautiful art student Francoise Gilot and fell passionately in love. Gilot was a Cambridge educated young woman, whose family had chosen a career in law for her, but her passion was art and she followed her muse.

Meeting her, Picasso was entranced by the girl 40 years his junior. They began a relationship and moved to the Golfe-Juan on the French Riviera where they loved to spend days on the beach. There they met the curator of a museum that had formerly been a chateau, and he offered Picasso the atelier of the museum for his studio. Picasso was delighted and told him: “While I’m here I’m not just going to paint some pictures. I am going to decorate your museum for you.” He created an entrancing work of art for the museum; ‘Joie de vivre’ portraying the radiant Gilot dancing in the centre of capering fauns and satyrs.

Gilot enjoyed the freedom to work at her art and was in time to make a considerable reputation. The couple had two children together, Claude in 1947 and Paloma in 1949, but the artist’s persistent philandering eventually drove Gilot away. Picasso was devastated when she made another life for herself and her children. In 1964 she wrote a best selling book on her years with the artist titled, My life with Picasso.

Recently viewing the series exhibited, titled, La Deux Femme Nues, lithographs 11 x 20 inches dated 1946, one felt the artist’s passion was tangible. The two nude forms, one a classic sleeping figure, the other recognisably Gilot, her beauty luminous against the dark enhancement of a background screen. There are several prints in a similar vein with slight differences of texture or pattern. The series continues with the same setting but differing models and a patterned screen, ominously ending with strange figuration and with the  addition of large bugs placed either side of the composition.

Two larger linocut prints dated 1959 were included in exhibition portraying Picasso’s life-long fascination with the accoutrements of bull-fighting; the costumes, suit of lights and weaponry. ‘Picador ET Torero’ are poster sized, 25 x 30 inches prints, brilliant linear compositions in which the artist captures the pride and grace of the matadors and the strength and power of the bulls. As in all of Pablo Picasso’s work, the exhibits exude a liberated feeling of spontaneous joy. As he stated, “It took me four years to paint like Raphael but a lifetime to paint like a child.”