My Trip To The Courtauld Gallery

As part of our Art and Design Theory Module we had to visit an exhibition. There were many exhibitions to choose from and I decided to visit Becoming Picasso at The Courtauld Gallery in Somerset House, London. I partly chose to visit the Courtauld Gallery because we are currently doing a design project on the former boiler house of Courtauld's Silk Factory in Halstead and I was intrigued to see part of the legacy Samuel and George Courtauld left behind.

Somerset House is beautiful and provided lots of picture taking opportunities. You have to walk through the main entrance of Somerset House and then upstairs and across the courtyard to get to the back of the building where the Courtauld Gallery is situated. Unfortunately, photos were not allowed inside the exhibition, but I took some of the outside.

I find Picasso's art very interesting. The exhibition "Becoming Picasso" is about his breakthrough year into art. He moved to Paris to launch his career as art was much more important in Paris. The exhibition was set in 2 rooms which started with the earlier work and went up to 1902 which was at the beginning of Picasso's "Blue period". A friend of his, Casagemas, committed suicide and Picasso's paintings became dark, he pretty much only used shades of blue, very occasionally embellishing them with warmer colours. He painted one of Casagemas in a coffin. I really remembered this piece, along with another of women standing around a grave, because of their morbidness.

Casagemas in his Coffin

Evocation (The Burial of Carles Casagemas)

From the beginning to the end of the exhibition it was easy to notice the change in Picasso's artwork. At the beginning his art uses warm colours. He painted a self-portrait and another called Dwarf-Dancer. 

Dwarf-Dancer (La Nana)

Self Portrait (Yo, Picasso)

I found my visit very interesting and I learnt a lot of new things about Picasso which I hadn't known before hand. It was also good to see the transition from his warmer coloured paintings to his Blue period paintings in one room, so that you could make a direct comparison.