The Bard stands with the Reformers of Peterloo, and their shared genius in teaching history with music and song
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Restless energy and inventiveness
CHRISTINE LINDEY is taken by Pablo Picasso’s output of 1932 – a curatorial choice that allows a full appreciation of his genius
Picasso's Nude Woman in a Red Armchair (left) and Reclining Nude (right)
SUE TURNER is fascinated by a book that researches who the largely immigrant workforce were that built the Empire State
MARIA DUARTE and MALC McGOOKIN review Sirat, The Testament of Ann Lee, EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, and All You Need Is Kill
STEVE ANDREW recommends a Marxist analysis of the long chains of production that global corporations exploit
MARY CONWAY relishes the period detail but misses the drama in this unsatisfactory dramatisation of the subjugated life of George Eliot
IAN SINCLAIR welcomes a mainstream scholar to the ranks of left-wing critique of US foreign policy
PETER MASON is disappointed that the eponymous Count fails to put in an appearance
Picasso 1932 — Love, Fame, Tragedy
Tate Modern
London SW1
Despite its rather misleading title, erotic love is the overarching subject of Tate Modern’s Picasso 1932, Love, Fame, Tragedy. Indeed, when first shown in Paris this extensive exhibition was more explicitly titled Picasso 1932 — Année erotique (erotic year).
This emphasis is clear from the selection of works, their captions and the wall texts, which are reproduced in the accompanying free booklet, and in some large statements by Picasso painted on the walls like “Essentially there is only love. Whatever that may be.”
Picasso’s muse was his young and illicit lover Marie-Therese Walter, whose long-limbed body and Grecian profile had arrested his gaze in a Paris boulevard in 1927. His cliched, but prophetic, chat-up line was “I feel we could do great things together.” And they did. She was not yet 18, he was 45.
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