Painters Picasso & Ingres Face to Face at the Norton Simon Museum: NPR
- 'Two painters, two women, two portraits — one fascinating story of artistic influence.' NPR, by Susan Stamberg, Nov. 2, 2022. - Ed.
- (Images), L, 'Madame Moitessier,' 1856 by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. The National Gallery, London. R, 'Woman with a Book,' 1932, by Pablo Picasso.The Norton Simon Fnd., The National Gallery, London.
It's said that Pablo Picasso once observed, "Lesser artists borrow; great artists steal." Or appropriate? Filch? Quote? Pinch? Steal gets right to it though. But in the case of these two great artists, they also honor, imitate, learn from, & certainly study. Studying these 2 portraits, 2 curators — one at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, the other at the National Gallery in London — found interesting differences & similarities.
On display together for the first time in London, the paintings are now on view in Pasadena in the exhibition Picasso Ingres: Face to Face.
Similarities. What do you notice? Two women sitting in armchairs, patterned dresses, heads resting slightly in their hands. Each has a mirror on the wall. Differences: One's rich, the other not so much. One holds a fan, the other a book. One looks directly (but not that warmly) at us. The other looks dreamily into the distance — away from the artist. One's got a Mona Lisa smile, the other, little rosebud lips. One's zaftig, one's bosoms are saying hello.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was at the top of his game when he painted Madame Moitessier in 1856. The portrait was commissioned by her family (paid for by her cigar merchant husband) & it took Ingres 12 years to finish. Life and other commissions interrupted.
Picasso was the most famous painter in the world when he did that portrait of his young lover Marie-Thérèse Walter in 1932. He painted her obsessively that year. When they met in 1927 she was 17, he was 45. Norton Simon curator Emily Talbot says he spotted her outside a department store. "She had this look of Greek classicism that interested him," Talbot says.
The portrait took him just one or two days to do. And her pose, the chair, the mirror are salutes to Ingres. Picasso had admired the French master for decades. He saw Ingres' works at the Louvre, and saw this one — the Madame Moitessier portrait — in person at a big 1921 Paris exhibition. "But he didn't riff on it until 1932," says London National Gallery curator Christopher Riopelle. So it took a while to take on Ingres with Marie-Thérèse as the Woman with a Book. Evidence of Ingres' influence (this is what art curators love to do): Emily Talbot says when Picasso & his artist friends spotted Madame Moitessier at the Paris show "they were sort of bowled over by what they saw. Until then, they didn't understand how strange Ingres was."...
More, https://www.npr.org/2022/11/02/1131922622/picasso-ingres-face-to-face-norton-simon
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