Reading Picasso. Adelfa Calvo reads texts by Pablo Picasso

In the spring of 1935, Picasso stopped painting for several months and began to write almost compulsively. It was a time of personal and artistic crisis. His poems were created in a manner similar to the automatic writing advocated by Surrealism. The handwriting is firm and imaginative and is accompanied by small illustrations.

Early in 1936, the Cahiers d’art magazine devoted a special supplement to Picasso, taking the opportunity to publish some of his texts in that issue for the first time. The cover even displays one of these poems. He writes in Spanish and French, almost without punctuation, sometimes combining both languages in the same text. There is also an article by André Breton entitled ‘Picasso the poet’.

The activities scheduled for the Museo Picasso Málaga’s 20th Anniversary include a reading of a selection of these poems and quotations by Pablo Picasso recorded throughout his life by the artist’s biographers and acquaintances.