Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was a great admirer of French painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867), who was known for his histories and portraits and as a student of Jacques-Louis David. The National Gallery London is now exhibiting the best-known example of this artistic relationship in Picasso Ingres: Face to Face: Picasso's Woman with a Book (1932) and Ingres's Madame Moitessier (1856) will be on view side by side from June 3 to October 9. The latter is on loan from the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California. Admission is free.
Picasso made numerous studies based on paintings by Inges. They significantly influenced his »neoclassical« creative period in the 1920s, when he sought to reinvent himself after the successes of Cubism. Particularly influential in Ingres' portrait was the mirror in front of which Madame Moitessier is depicted. The reflection allows a second point of view − now on her profile − that is not physically possible in this way. The mirror in Picasso's painting illustrates this aspect.
The exciting juxtaposition will then be on view at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena from October 21, 2022 to January 30, 2023.
