Promotional Information

This book accompanies an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (25 January - 13 April 2020) and the Cleveland Museum of Art (May - August 2020)

About the Author

Ann Dumas is Curator at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Emmanuelle Hincelin is a paper conservator. Christopher Lloyd CVO is former Surveyor of The Queen's Pictures. Emilia Philippot is Curator at the Musee national Picasso-Paris. Bill Robinson is Senior Curator of Modern European Painting and Sculpture at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Stephen Coppel is Curator of the Modern Collection, Department of Prints and Drawings, at the British Museum. Violette Andres is responsible for digitisation and photographic collections at the Musee Picasso, Paris

Reviews

Picasso didn't simply put pencil to paper, he tore, twisted, and burned it in endless experimentation, sometimes using it to create 3-D forms...these works, embod[y] Picasso's ever roaming imagination.-- "Airmail"

A connoisseur of the cheap and mass produced as well as the handmade and the specialised, as he folded, glued together, cut and tore, basted in ink and washes, drew on and rubbed into. Paper for him was a medium (just as was paint, clay or plaster) to be manipulated... The multiple transformations he performed in his art evidence his unnerving vitality, his recklessness and confidence, his altogether too-muchness.--Adrian Searle "Guardian"

Few artists were so sensitive to the sensuous qualities of particular paper [...] but he was the kind of man who'd make the most of anything he could lay his hands on.--Melanie McDonagh "Evening Standard"

I can't imagine there will be a more comprehensive and thoughtful exhibition of this giant of modern art in my lifetime.--Andrew Marr "Daily Mail"

Nothing less than an accumulation of sacred relics.--Laura Cumming "Guardian"

Reveals the full scope of his brilliance--Waldemar Januszczak "The Times"

The work is a whirlwind of innovation, and here, on paper, Picasso is doing it all at his most intimate and unguarded... this is a show filled with jaw-dropping moments of beauty.--Editors "Time Out London"

There's Brilliance At Every Turn In 'Picasso And Paper.'--Editors "Londonist"

This torrent of a show isn't really about Picasso and paper: It's about the magic of his hands: The urge to make.--Editors "The Times"

While his ability to re-envision people, places and objects was arguably without peer, equally laudable was Picasso's ostensibly effortless ability to work across a wide swatch of mediums and materials.--Ken Scrudato "Blackbook"

Why was paper so important to him then? Because it gave Picasso an enormous degree of flexibility, physically and mentally. He was never a theoretician... What he did instead was to work through his ideas verblessly, with his hands, and often at the speed of a magician... Paper, in short, was at one with this artist's nature.--Michael Glover "Hyperallergic"