Picasso and the Spanish Classics
Exhibition
This focused exhibition at the Hispanic Society Museum & Library explores Pablo Picasso’s interpretation of and response to Spanish literature.
This dossier exhibition at the Hispanic Society Museum & Library is a part of the larger Picasso Celebration 1973–2023, an international program to honor the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881–1973). This exhibition is one of many around the world celebrating the work and legacy of the artist.
Throughout his life, Picasso affirmed his Spanish heritage, and he frequently found inspiration in literary masterworks from his homeland. Curator Dr. Patrick Lenaghan has drawn from the institution’s holdings, with a particular focus on their Library’s vast resources, to curate an exhibition that focuses on Picasso’s reinterpretation of the literary classics of his native land and particularly, his engagement with two literary giants of the seventeenth century: Luis de Góngora y Argote (1561–1627) and Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616).
The exhibition also highlights Picasso’s reinterpretation of Velázquez’s Portrait of Góngora, the artist’s vision of the ideal woman, and his depiction of the iconic figures from Cervantes’s novel Don Quixote. Featuring a recent acquisition, Picasso’s suite of prints, Góngora’s Vingt poèmes (1948), the show will display rarely seen works of art alongside seventeenth-century editions and manuscripts.
The free exhibition will be on view in the Hispanic Society’s Project Room within the newly reopened Main Building.