Picasso

Published on the occasion of the Centre Pompidou exhibition Picasso. Dessiner à l’infini, this substantial catalogue examines drawing as one of the most persistent and experimental currents running through Pablo Picasso’s career. From his early studies to his final works, drawing functioned for Picasso not simply as preparation for painting or sculpture, but as an autonomous arena for observation, invention, repetition, transformation, and continual formal discovery. The exhibition, organized by the Centre Pompidou in collaboration with the Musée national Picasso-Paris, brought together nearly one thousand works, including drawings, sketchbooks, and prints, in what the museum described as the largest retrospective devoted to Picasso’s drawn and graphic work.

Edited by Anne Lemonnier and Johan Popelard, the catalogue approaches Picasso’s graphic production through fifty thematic entries rather than a strictly chronological narrative. Its extensive selection reveals the extraordinary range of his draftsmanship and the central position occupied by works on paper within his broader practice. Published by Éditions du Centre Pompidou and illustrated with approximately 350 images, Dessiner à l’infini is an important recent reference for the study of Picasso as a draftsman and for collectors, scholars, and libraries concerned with twentieth-century drawing and works on paper.