National Museum of Wales delighted by capture of their Picasso gem
The first oil painting by the 20th century’s most influential artist to enter a public collection in Wales will go on display today.
Pablo Picasso’s Nature Morte Au Poron, or Still Life with Poron, has spent several years in a private collection but has been acquired by the National Museum of Wales for more than £1.4m.
Although painted after the Second World War, it references Picasso’s single most important innovation: the development of cubism in the first decade of the 20th century.
The museum said the painting was as relevant to Wales as to any other country as its creator had forced every progressive painter in the world either to adjust to or reject his work,
Although its price tag is considerably above the £600,000-£800,000 estimated in 2008, art experts yesterday said it was “money well spent”.
The oil painting – purchased from E & R Cyzer Gallery in London – features a lobster, a lemon and the poron, a traditional Spanish wine pitcher, which are laid out on a kitchen table.
It was painted in Picasso’s studio on the Rue des Grands Augustins in Paris in December 1948.
The museum’s keeper of art, Oliver Fairclough, said it “completes our portrayal of one of the greatest creative geniuses of the last century”.
The museum already has four works on paper by Picasso and a significant group of the artist’s autograph ceramics. But curators felt an oil painting was missing.
The 50 x 61cm painting connects the museum’s School of Paris works – including Manet, Monet, Van Gogh and Cézanne – with some of its most important paintings of the postwar period, including those by Welsh artists such as Ceri Richards and Graham Sutherland, for whom the Pembrokeshire landscape was an inspiration.
Nicholas Thornton, the museum’s head of modern and contemporary art, said the painting – relatively unknown compared to Picasso’s works like Garçon à la Pipe (Boy With A Pipe) which sold for $104m in 2004 – would acquire greater significance now it was in a public collection. “His still-lifes during the war period are very important and this is a very important painting within Picasso’s career,” he said.
“There aren’t many oil paintings from that year, when he was in the south of France concentrating on ceramics.”
Nature Morte Au Poron’s purchase was funded through the museum’s centenary fund with equal match-funding from the Derek Williams Trust over a period of five years. Independent charity The Art Fund contributed £100,000. Mr Thornton said the centenary fund was set up in addition to the museum’s core aim of exhibiting art from Wales or with strong links to the country.
“Over 70% of our acquisitions are by artists with links to Wales or Welsh artists and that’s the core of our job,” he said.
“But it’s also to set Welsh artists in an international context. Artists like Richards and Sutherland were influenced by Picasso.”
Dr Chris Short, a senior lecturer at Uwic’s Cardiff School of Art and Design, said: “It’s a very lively, exciting painting; that will sit well in the National Museum’s collection beside its Picasso ceramics.
“It will definitely enrich what is already an internationally important collection of modern art.
“The price is hard for me to comment on, but it seems to have well exceeded estimates that were given for the work a little over a year ago and that, in my opinion, is money well spent given the long term rewards of its inclusion in our national collection.”
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