Picasso's Drawings 1890-1921 Reinventing Tradition

Picasso's Drawings, 1890-1921, which accompanied an exhibition held at The Frick Collection from October 4, 2011 through January 8, 2012, and at The National Gallery of Art in February, 2012 follows the dazzling development of the artist's drawing practice from the precocious academic exercises of his youth to his renewal of classicism in his virtuoso output of the early 1920s. A selection of more than seventy works on paper, with extended entries, highlights his stylistic experiments and techniques during this roughly thirty-year period, which begins and ends in a classical mode and encompasses his most radical innovations. Discussions of Picasso's style, sources, and techniques demonstrate how drawing served as an essential means of invention and discovery for the artist.