Pablo Picasso
Two Brothers, 1906
Gouache on paperboard, 80 x 59 cm
Muse National Picasso, Paris, MP7
de Young Museum . Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

(I've said it a thousand times and I'm not gonna stop. Thank god art is gluten free; a feast for the eyes every time.)

To attempt to derive an original review of Pablo Picasso and his art is virtually impossible seeing how he has been the most documented artist of the 20th century. The current exhibit at the de Young, however, actually manages to peel a corner from the edge of an undiscovered mounted photograph, beneath which resides a tide of Picasso that I have never seen before. The show cuts a precise eye through the needle of his entire career, with a silken thread that is unblemished in it's weaving of the portrait of a man that managed to harness the totality of his talent, yolk it to his chest, and prodigiously execute and share it with unparalleled power. There isn't a medium he didn't explore; he experienced everything he could get his hands on.
Oil Painting: The Tragedy: Pablo Picasso Hand-Painted Art
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But he was not without his flaws and the show reflected upon this with such compassionate beauty, highlighting his sufferings, his losses of loved ones, his denizens of women, his children, his loves and unloved; revealing how these personal experiences effected his art at its' very core, making this show a must see for any and everyone that has a creative spirit. It shows that no matter the tragedy, if you are truly passionate, your passion can save you and lift you up into the ether.

Pablo Picasso
Cat Catching a Bird, 1939
Oil on Canvas, 81 x 100 cm
Muse National Picasso, Paris, MP178
de Young Museum . Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

I love his Cat Killing a Bird because it looks like he painted this one morning on his way out of bed, finishing it in such a hurry he didn't bother to change paint brushes to sign and date the thing. He simply flipped his paint brush around and used the wooden handle to scratch the date onto the canvas in the upper left corner. Then he just left the thing on the floor to dry next to his slippers as he shuffled into the kitchen for some coffee. Art oozed from his every pore and this is his way of saying that he knew that anything he put on canvas would be considered genius, because it actually is.

Pablo Picasso
Still Life with Pitcher and Apples, 1919
Oil on Canvas, 65 x 43 cm
Muse National Picasso, Paris, MP64
de Young Museum . Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Still life has always been a genre that I love for many reasons but most notably because they inspire my own work when I'm envisioning a food photo shoot. One of my favorite still life artists is the Italian master, Giorgio Morandi, and Picasso's Still Life with Pitcher and Apples is a wonderful example of how deeply artists are constantly influencing one another.

Pablo Picasso
Seated Woman in Front of a Window, 1937
Oil on Pastel on Canvas, 130 x 97.3 cm
Muse National Picasso, Paris, MP161
de Young Museum . Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

When you see Seated Woman in Front of a Window, you can't help but blink several times to try to shake a focus out of your head. Picasso's use of texture and line make the woman seem like a transparency, a floating apparition with the harmony of perfect color study her only anchor to this world.