Picasso’s legendary capacity for invention is never clearer than in his works using paper. This beautiful catalogue accompanies the Picasso and Paper exhibition on at the Royal Academy 25 January - 13 April 2020, with six essays exploring the themes of the exhibition.

The softback exhibition catalogue is available exclusively from the RA Shop.

Picasso’s artistic output is astonishing in its ambition and variety. This new publication examines a particular aspect of his legendary capacity for invention: his imaginative and original use of paper. He used it as a support for autonomous works, including etchings, prints and drawings, as well as for his papier-collé experiments of the 1910s and his revolutionary three-dimensional ‘constructions’, made of cardboard, paper and string. Sometimes, his use of paper was simply determined by circumstance: in occupied Paris, where art supplies were in short supply, he ripped up paper tablecloths to make works of art. And of course his works on paper comprise the preparatory stages of some of his very greatest paintings. 

With reproductions of more than 300 works of art and a series of insightful new texts by leading authorities on the artist, this comprehensive study reveals the myriad ways in which Picasso’s genius seized the potential of paper throughout his career.

Among the texts are:

–  William H. Robinson on Picasso’s astonishingly inventive use of paper

–  Emilia Philippot on the key techniques and concepts that made paper a central feature of Picasso’s art

–  Christopher Lloyd on Picasso’s extraordinarily prolific draughtsmanship

– Paper conservator Emmanuelle Hincelin on the types of paper Picasso used

– Stephen Coppel on Picasso’s prints, which number nearly 2,500

– Violette Andres on Picasso’s experiments with photography and collaboration with photographers including Dora Maar

For more exhibition catalogues produced by RA Publications, click here.