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Sunday, March 11, 2018

Picasso At Tate Modern Overlooking London's Thames River and Picasso worldwide

Problem
A Picasso exhibition is at the Tate Modern in London. What will it cost? Do I need to queue? (Americans would say line up), can I eat at The Tate, and what else could I do in the area? If I am not even keen on Picasso, should I accept an invitation to go and see it? Where else can I see Picassos? What else can I see in London?

Answers
Before reading all the comments and reviews in assorted newspaper, it would be a good idea to look straight at the website of the Tate to see what their experts have to say.

The exhibition features Picasso's prolific output of paintings in the year 1932. He was fifty years old. He lived  (25 October 1881 in MálagaSpain – 8 April 1973). In 1932 he was juggling between his wife Olga, their 10-year-old-son and his girlfriend, Marie-Therese Walter, his much younger girlfriend, 28 years younger, and his muse who sat for paintings.

Marie-Therese? The French Catholics call girls Marie, after the Virgin Mary,  and hyphenate it with another name, as in the magazine Marie-Claire. Marie-Therese might strike you as a long name, if you are used to English language speakers who are happy with plain Mary. However, her name is nothing compared to the length of Picasso's own full name, so long that I can't even type it from memory but would have to copy it.

If you are interested in art, it's no good getting hoity-toity about the private lives of artists. What I find interesting is that so many of them were not untrained at all. Picasso's parents had an artist background. His father was a painter. (Lowry went to art school.) They hung out with other artists.

If you want to buy reproductions of Picasso paintings, you will find postcards, prints and books at Tate. I find the building, inside and out, rather austere.

Once inside, however, you get good views over the more charming buildings of Lodnon looking out from the Tate Modern over the bridge across the River Thames to landmarks. Try plotting them in advance of your visit, perhaps printing out a map to check them off. Any big hotel is likely to have free maps of London.

Where to see Picasso's Paintings

UK
Exhibition at Tate Modern, Bankside, London, SE1 9TG, England.
The postcode is handily easy to remember TG which also stands for Tate Gallery.

If you have a tripod and flash you cannot use them and may be asked to check them in. Is there any point taking your heavy camera equipment, if you can't use it? Yes, because you might want to take some shots of the river Thames and landmarks.

FRANCE
Museé Picasso, Paris, France

SPAIN
Museu Picasso, Barcelona, Spain
Museo Picasso, Malaga, Spain

Picasso's Guernica in Spain. Photo by Joaquin in Wikipedia's numerous editions in various languages.

USA
Numerous galleries including:
NEW YORK
(Solomon) Guggenheim Museum, Manhattan, New York
Metropolitan Museum of Art
OHIO
Cleveland, Ohio
WASHINGTON DC
National Gallery of Art

Other artists' art in London, England:
National Gallery on Trafalgar Square, London.
National Portrait Gallery, behind the National Gallery, London.
Free exhibition of Victorian paintings in the upstairs gallery at The Guildhall. (see my previous posts.)
Heath Robinson exhibition of cartoons in a house containing a ground floor restaurant beside the lake in the pretty park in Pinner. (Walk through the park opposite Pinner station on the Metropolitan line from Baker Street.)

Useful websites
http://www.tate.org.uk/press/press-releases/tate-modern-stage-landmark-picasso-exhibition-spring-2018
http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern/cafe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso

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