Apparently, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Even for one of the most legendary artists of our time: top dog Pablo Picasso. Turns out, the Spanish artist was a big fan of French neoclassical painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, and was constantly referencing him throughout his career.
There’s one of Ingres’s works that he was particularly fond of: a 1856 painting of a lady called Madame Moitessier. She’s sitting down, wearing her finest jewellery and glad rags, index finger raised. She stares out with a deadpan resting bitch face, and is basically the nineteenth-century equivalent of an Instagram baddie.
Anyway, this lass inspired Picasso’s famous 1932 painting, ‘Woman with a Book’ – a colourful cubist interpretation of someone sitting in the same pose. You’ll be able to see the two works side by side in the flesh for the first time ever at the National Gallery next summer, thanks to a new collaboration with the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California, which is loaning the Picasso. The exhibition, ‘Picasso Ingres: Face to Face’, will be on display from June 3 to October 9 2022 for free, before it heads over to the states later that year.
‘Picasso Ingres: Face to Face’. National Gallery. Jun 3-Oct 9 2022. Free.
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