LIFE photo archive and Picasso

I love Picasso and this LIFE archive (with Google) has published some wonderful photos of the prolific artist and his work - a lot I had never seen. I have a few Picasso books (one of my favorites is 'Picasso on Paper' published 2007, my husband bought this for my birthday, he also loves his work and knows I especially love his drawings and prints) but find looking through the archive, is like finding hidden treasure!. More about the archive here on Art News Blog.


Described by many as a tyrant, Picasso respected his art (and himself) above everything. This doesn't tarnish my love and admiration for his work and I could look at it for hours. My husband and I visited his museum on our honeymoon last year in Paris, Musée National Picasso. Referring to the LIFE images as hidden treasure takes me back to this time. When we visited we were lucky enough to catch an exhibition by the artist Xavier Lucchesi who X-rayed Picasso's ceramic sculptures, great description here:

"As I speak, one of these ghosts is stalking the Hôtel Salé, just down the hill in the Marais. The Musée Picasso is preparing its autumn show, X-Rayed from Picasso, which exposes for the first time the inner life - the image intérieure - of the Spaniard's ceramic sculptures."

"These have always seemed curious objects, although no one guessed just how curious until a French photographer called Xavier Lucchesi recently X-rayed them. What Lucchesi discovered was that Picasso had filled works such as The Goat and The Monkey and its Baby with secrets. Entombed in the clay of the first is a bicycle chain, shards of pottery and a wicker basket handle. Each sculpture is a time capsule, set to be opened only after Picasso had gone to wherever it is that good artists go when they die: heaven or, more likely, La Coupole. Lucchesi's X-rays, with their auras and spectral treasures, are part of the ghost story that is August in Paris." (Picture of Paris article 2006).

We didn't know this exhibition was on at the time so what a surprise. The X-Rays were amazing, it felt like the works were alive and we were looking at their skeletons. The X-Rays were beautiful and I wish we had have spent more time there. You could also see clearly the bits and pieces he had entombed. Wow. Though part of me felt intrusive also.