The Thyssen Museum confronts the designs of the seamstress who liberated the woman’s body with the works of the painter who unleashed 20th-century art. “This exhibition deactivates Picasso’s toxic masculinity argument and takes him away from stereotypes,” says Guillermo Solana
Not a single photo bears witness to the intense friendship between Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel (1883-1971) and Pablo Ruiz Picasso (1881-1973). Geniuses of fashion and painting crossed paths in Paris, influencing each other and changing the history of fashion and art. This is evident from ‘Picasso/Chanel’, the exhibition hosted by the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum until 15 January. Curated by curator Paula Luengo, it juxtaposes the designs of Chanel, the seamstress who liberated the female body, with the paintings and drawings of Picasso, who unleashed 20th-century art.
“With so much talk about Picasso’s toxic masculinity, this exhibition deactivates that argument and enriches the vision of a Picasso far removed from stereotypes,” said Guillermo Solana, artistic director of Thyssen, the first museum to explore the relationship between the two. treats. creators. It does so on its 30th anniversary, raising the bar for the Year of Picasso, which commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the Malagasy genius with fifty exhibitions and events. It brings together sixty-seven fantastic works by Picasso, on loan from major collections and museums, most notably the Picasso in Paris, and 52 Chanel models.
The first of the four sections analyzes Chanel’s relationship with Cubism and the movement’s influence on her first and innovative designs. It is observed how the geometrical language of form, the chromatic austerity or the cubist poetics of the ‘collage’ are transferred to packs of straight and angular lines. Also his preference for the masses of color – white, black and beige – or the use of modest fabrics. “Chanel invents the cheap, the rich misery, the enchanting poverty,” said Maurice Sachs. It makes “luxury misery” said the couturier Paul Poiret.
The second part is about the relationship between Olga Khokhlova, the elegant dancer of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and Picasso’s first wife, with the iconoclastic seamstress who liberated women from the physical and mental corset. Khokhlova wore Chanel on her wedding day to Picasso, and he then photographed her with other designs from the company. Several of Picasso’s portraits of his first wife and a devoted Coco Chanel client can be seen alongside dresses from the French designer’s early days, few of which have survived.
The last two parts deal with the fruitful collaboration between Chanel and Picasso in two theatrical productions promoted by Jean Cocteau: ‘Antigone’ (1922) and ‘The Blue Train’ (1924). Cocteau adapted the work of Sophocles, which he premiered with sets and masks by Picasso and costumes by Chanel, showing their common inspiration in classical Greece. ‘The Blue Train’, a ballet produced by Diaghilev in 1924 with a libretto by Cocteau, is inspired by sports and swimwear.
Friends and collaborators in bustling avant-garde Paris, Picasso’s biographer John Richardson suggests that the designer and artist were more than just friends, and that a volatile and fiery relationship existed between them. Richardson recalls Chanel storing Picasso in her apartment and suggests that the flame of passion reached the freest of geniuses.
They had met in the spring of 1917 through Cocteau or Misia Sert “when the painter was already a devoted and wealthy artist.” “She had achieved success and fashion was part of her new way of life, in a world already far removed from the bohemian she lived in during her early years in Paris,” explains Solana.
From that moment on, Chanel, then closely associated with the artistic and intellectual world of Paris, attended the wedding of Olga and Pablo Picasso, in parallel with the artist’s active participation in the Ballets Russes. “It is the artists who taught me rigor,” said the creator of the legendary perfume ‘Chanel nº 5’, whose prototypical and small bottle is exhibited in the Thyssen.
In an exhibition full of Picasso’s masterpieces, the stars are two small pieces of immense importance: ‘The Bathers’, painted in Biarritz in 1918, and the small gouache ‘Two Women Running on the Beach’. (The Race)’, 1922. Diaghilev discovered the first one in Picasso’s workshop and turned it into the curtain picture for ‘The Blue Train’. An avid athlete, Chanel created outfits for the dancers, inspired by sports models designed and painted by Picasso for her and her clients.
The two works, on loan from the Picasso Museum in Paris, blatantly demonstrate the relationship between the models Chanel designed – in this case bathing suits and tunics – and Picasso’s models.
The exhibition brings together an exceptional selection of dresses, oil paintings, drawings and other pieces from lenders, including Almine and Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, Patrimoine de Chanel and the Picasso Museum in Paris who stand out for their generosity. It has the support of the Chanel community of Madrid and Telefónica/ACE, sponsors of the 1973/2023 Picasso celebration.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
