On 25th October, 1971, Pablo Picasso turned ninety years old. This occasion led to much greater visibility for the artist and also laid bare the antagonistic reception of him. While for some his name was becoming more established as a symbol of freedom, for others he embodied subversion and a personification of anti-Francoism. Furthermore, the latter considered the series “Sueño y mentira de Franco” (Franco’s dream and lie) to be “an insult to the highest authority of the nation”. For certain reactionary groups this provided sufficient motivation to mount a campaign of attacks against the name of Picasso. This began a few days after his birthday with the destruction of the engravings of the “Suite Vollard” series that Galería Theo, in Madrid, was exhibiting in homage to the artist. The assaults continued with an arson attack on the Taller de Picasso gallery, in Barcelona, and further damage wrought on bookstores, such as Antonio Machado, Visor and Cinc d’Oros, which were paying tribute to the painter in their window displays.
After the arson attack that destroyed the Taller de Picasso gallery, the young gallery director Santiago Palet devised a tribute to the painter: visual artists, musicians, writers, figures from cinema and theatre were invited to create a doily art – a piece of cotton bordered with lace – dedicated to Picasso. A year later, these works were displayed in Vallauris, in an exhibition entitled 1er. Rencontre International d’Hommage à Picasso. The event became an action of resistence, demonstrating the indignation of the art world at the attacks against the artist, as well as their frustration at the permissive official line on the attacks.
Homenaje a Picasso. Vallauris, 1972 (Homage to Picasso. Vallauris, 1972) presents this extraordinary collection of 400 doily artworks made by over 270 national and international artists, such as Rafael Alberti, Joan Brossa, Alexander Calder, Pau Casals, Equipo Crónica, Sonia Delaunay, Juan Genovés, Hans Hartung, Wilfredo Lam, Joan Miró, Pablo Neruda and Antoni Tàpies, among many others.
The extraordinary collection acquired by Fundació Vila Casas was exhibited at Espais Volart in 2022, curated by Nadia Hernández. Now, a year later, the project travels beyond Catalonia for the first time and with a new perspective. Through a careful selection of a hundred examples of the doily art, Hernández offers a thematic approach to guide the viewer through the exhibition. In this way, the artworks by Alexander Calder, Pau Casals, Equipo Crónica and Pablo Neruda – among others – are grouped together around concepts such as “Picasso in our memory”, “Picasso as a reference point”, “Poets”, “Writers” and “Inner exile”, to name but a few.
Curated by Nadia Hernández.
Photography: Pablo Román
Palacio Maria Pita de l’Ajuntament de La Corunya
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