Art: Picasso, Spots & All

Pablo Picasso y Ruiz was having a one-man show last week. Among the people who flocked to see it in Paris’ Galerie Louis Carré was the Brazilian Ambassador to France, an amateur of the arts. Two art experts guided him to a painting which—like many recent Picassos—had a few careless spots on it as well as several places where the great man had obviously painted over his earlier attempts. The Ambassador would have none of it, triumphantly selected a nice clean one to take home.

Most everyone else who saw Picasso’s latest show would as soon demand a thunderstorm without clouds or rain as a Picasso without smudges or spots. The faithful raved over a pinheaded, plump-breasted, dirty-white thing astride a horned and half-destroyed reddish-brown thing. Entitled The Rape of Europa, it was dated June 5, 1946. Asked one impious art-lover: “Between what hours did he paint it?” It seemed to have something to do with the Greek myth in which Zeus turned himself into a bull to carry off a pretty girl named Europa on his back. Picasso’s price: $13,000.

Much more recognizable, and more fascinating to gallery gossips, was the picture reproduced on the cover of the show’s catalogue, an unassuming but perfect etching of 64-year-old Picasso’s new girl: the mysterious 19-year-old brunette who is rumored to be the daughter of his concierge. Judging by the picture, she had the classical, wide-eyed face of a Leda, and the neck of a swan.