Category: Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso, "The Bathers"

11/29/2020

Pablo Picasso, The Bathers (Les Baigneuses), 1918; © Succession Picasso / RMN - Grand Palais (Musée National Picasso, Paris).

Picasso's famous "Bathers" is seen above on display at the Musée National Picasso, Paris. The modern reproduction below has made extensive changes, including the falsely yellow and green coloration, and the heightened contrast, resulting in significant loss of detail. Also note the mark of the art vendor upper left — always an indication that the image might not offer a faithful representation of the original. It's helpful to remember that even abstract artwork will often retain natural colors in the sky, water, land, flesh tones, and so on. Artificial coloring frequently means that someone has tampered with the photo or created a new artwork that's only loosely based on the authentic work, freely altering the original elements to create a new, possibly more market-friendly, interpretation.

Altered version of a painting by Pablo Picasso.

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Pablo Picasso, "Olga"

9/30/2020

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Pablo Picasso, Olga Pensive, 1923; ©Succession Picasso; Musée Picasso Paris. Photo: Mathieu Rabeau/Etablissement public de La Réunion des musées nationaux et du Grand Palais des Champs-Elysées.

There are a lot of Picasso reproductions around, and for some reason many are altered in color, with randomly selected hues not necessarily reminiscent of the originals. In this portrait of Picasso's first wife, Olga, her dress — formerly in blue pastel — has been replaced with purple using an unknown medium. And compare the backgrounds in the two versions. The qualities of the backdrops are very different, indicating that the altered update is probably a modern painting or possibly even a digital recreation, rather than an authentic photo that's been digitally manipulated.

Altered version of a pastel work by Pablo Picasso.

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Pablo Picasso, "Madrilèna, Young Woman"

9/25/2020

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Pablo Picasso, La Madrilèna (Portrait of a Young Woman), c.1901; Kröller-Müller Museum.

Someone took a lot of liberties with the coloring in the reproduction below, adding an orange tinge to the entire painting. It's possible that the changes could have been achieved with a photo editing app, but it might be a recently painted reproduction. The image above is from the museum where the painting is located. As a side note, a 2017-18 exhibit called Picasso/Lautrec at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museo Nacional revealed much about Lautrec's influence on Picasso during this period (and even later in his career), as well as the two artists' different approaches to their shared cultural and social environment in Paris in the early 1900s.