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3 Picasso, the Minotaur

«Where is my ability to create,
invention of forms? I do not know. I think only one
 - About the work. I write as I breathe. At work, I relax.
 Idleness, visits my tire.
Often I stub out the light at three o'clock in the morning "-
he said Beyeler.
Patrick O'Brien, Pablo Picasso Ruitz

Christian Mori: Your carefully prepared catalogs have helped you become a famous museum curators and collectors, as well as by the artists. You met with Picasso because of them?

Ernst Beyeler: In the late fifties, the Impressionists were still too expensive for me. Even Matisse had I can not afford. Products Picasso was still accessible due to the huge amount of work. I looked for a man who could get me some canvases by Picasso. An artist among my friends, Jean Plank - we still have to mention his name - well-known Parisian gallery owners and collectors. It was he who opened my contemporary art in 1953-1955. He helped me to find work for my show, brought me a beautiful canvas, sometimes tried to convince me to assess the work less significant. Arriving to Picasso, he told him that works for me. Picasso said that he was receiving catalogs of our galleries and stores them, and agreed to take me.
That was in 1957, six years before I put Absinthe Drinker his blue period, which came from the Kunsthalle in Hamburg. I hung it in front of banks of Matisse - the two pictures Nazis as a kind of "degenerate art". So, Picasso knew about the existence of our gallery and how carefully we prepare exhibitions and catalogs. Since I first saw him at his villa Notre-Dame-de-Vie in Mougins.

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What was he, Picasso?

Picasso. He was a Picasso. How do I respond differently? I do not know how to behave. In the room were his wife, Jacqueline Miguel and Secretary. Picasso stood in front of me and waited to see what I talk. He smiled, but his expression was stern, searching. We talked about art. Gradually, the atmosphere tense. I am not a scientist, I can not comment on the art. But I behaved and not as a trader, a speculator. We just talked - wisdom spoken with enthusiasm. Not a word was said either about the motives of interest, or of envy Marchand. He was interested in my show. I told him about them. He liked it. "What you are now ready?" - He asked.

- The exhibition of the artist, which you do not particularly like, Bonnard.
- This is a good artist!

He was always on the side of artists that did not stop him from criticizing them, sometimes very severely. When he spoke, it was necessary to "read between the lines. Several times I asked him if he would not sell me something. "Then we'll see" - he replied. I knew that all sales made through Kanvaylera, his exclusive Paris Marchand. Jacqueline and Miguel made me realize that I must insist, but I did not dare. I went to him several times, and once, taking my hand, he brought me into the hall and said: "Choose." Suddenly I found myself in the cave of Ali Baba - in the hall was more than eight canvases ... I'm confused: I could not sit in his studio for the whole day! Then I thought about Kanvaylere - Picasso just gave him work, which wanted to sell ... and he allowed me to choose! Picasso saw that I did not know what to do, and encourage me: "Just imagine that you - Vollard! He came to my studio, watching all the work. Usually, he wanted to buy everything. We agreed on price, then he took from his pockets bichevku to pack paintings. We lowered them down and laid in a taxi. So do not hesitate to choose! ". In the end, I chose 45 canvases. Picasso looked at them and put 26 - I could buy them. I was shocked by the ease with which this transaction was concluded, and the directness of Picasso. Among the works that I had bought was the salvation of 1932, which predicted the central theme of Guernica. Later, Bill Rubin, curator of New York Museum of Modern Art, the exhibition of Picasso hung job-provozvestnitsu front of Guernica.
Sometimes Picasso was very sharp. Once his dog grabbed Jean Planck pants. Picasso laughed and did not react. He loved to tell any stories, play the scene. He said that accumulate with age problem: his husky old accountant, Max Pelker, asking him the most delicate issues, shouting to the whole street. It seemed to me that Picasso did not grow old. I told him that one visitor galleries surprised that in the later his work is no serenity, like a Matisse. "And what you said? - What do you too young to write the later work. He chuckled.

Thus, Picasso - the central figure in your collection, and now - Fund?

The collection is based on cubism and abstraction. This - her balance and, perhaps, its originality in comparison with a collection of Kanvaylera, who placed first in cubism in general, and Picasso, but did not understand a Kandinsky or Mondrian. However, creativity and personality of Picasso put it in the center of the art of the twentieth century. He wanted to outdo all, their ingenuity, an analog which can only be found in Leonardo da Vinci, he changed history. Try to imagine what it would be without the French art of Picasso. That would be the art of Mannerism. Picasso pulled up all along. He stimulated Braque, Gris, Matisse, Leger, Mondrian, and many others. When the Russian artists came to Paris, they came to his studio. She stayed there for long, but they went out of it with a totally updated looks - both born constructivism.

which predominated in the nature of Picasso's?

His ambitious personality suppressed. He could not afford everything and knew it was a child. "As a child - he said - I drew like Raphael. I put all my life to learn to paint like a child. He had nothing in common with the ideal person in our imagination - a polite, nice, polite, humane. It was a king, it was a god. In Mougins mother came to him offering their daughters. It was the Minotaur, and he knew it. It was a vital force Minotaur, and while he was capable of amazing and genuine tenderness. They said he was stingy. But who can be generous after living in poverty? Yes, he thought he could count. But at the same time he gave a lot, in particular, during the war, when it was necessary to help artists to flee from Paris. He gave a lot and sometimes forget that.
Working for him was the most important thing. He worked all the time. He had only to look at something - and started internal work. You know, Picasso would not be a Picasso, if he did not have incredible visual memory. Like Mozart, who always could write everything I heard. Picasso memorize everything I saw. I quite clearly understand this by comparing two of his works. I had just bought a woman in a green, a portrait of Dora Maar. I unpacked it and put it on his desk near the Lady Cezanne in a yellow chair. The facial expression, aspect ratio, position in space at both works seemed to me very related. Then I put them next to each other and stared. His hands were folded models equally. Busts are written with a force, hair - gathered in chignon at Madame Cezanne, flowing from Dora Maar - express the same severity. Cezanne neckerchief Picasso has replaced the neck. And in both portraits of the left hand wall is visible, the Cezanne - barely outlined, Picasso - more accentuated. So what is this homage to Cezanne? Reminiscences of the sight leaf? It is clear that Picasso saw this Cezanne from Vollard and transpoziroval it. So I had two paintings extraordinary force, and canvas Picasso was still also has the absolute, crazy dynamics. Both canvases are in our collection.

He listened to people whether it is from its surroundings?

He listened to the artists, a lot of talking to them. Listened to whether he Marchand? I do not think so. Once I saw his meter bed, very beautiful, full of freshness. I told him that she was gorgeous, but very fragile and therefore it would be difficult to sell, especially to Americans who buy for eternity. Only a pastel by Degas sold well in the U.S., because Degas covered them with lacquer to preserve them. Picasso did not have believed it. "I think that cover the bed with varnish - it spoils it. Two days later the whole freshness disappears - he said. And he compared the bed with the impression that it produced dancers of Diaghilev: "At first it seems that their dance - almost as an act of love, but when you see them a second time, it is quite wrong." He never covered his bed with lacquer.

After a referendum in Basel, it was decided to buy two canvases by Picasso, whether expressed his gratitude to his city?

There were two of the project. First, in Basel, was supposed to install a large sculpture of Picasso, but city officials still lingered. After his death, we have received from Bernard Picasso, a small sculpture, which increased and placed in the Basel museum, an area of Picasso. Then there was the draft order windows for the cathedral. A competition was held, but the results were unsatisfactory. I have asked Picasso to think about these stained glass windows. He later admitted to me that when I made him this offer, he could not accept it, but then he saw that he did Matisse chapel in Vence. "How can you decorate the chapel?" - He asked Matisse. "What's that? With a chapel, that brothel, this is all the same! "- Said Matisse. When Picasso agreed to create a stained-glass windows for the Basel Cathedral, unfortunately, it was too late.

you have organized two major exhibitions of works belonging to you by Picasso, "Picasso 1900-1932" and "Picasso 1932-1965. What was his reaction?

He was always happy with the quality of our catalogs. But after I bought the lot drawing, we were able to organize other exhibitions. His ninetieth birthday, I invited him to make an exhibition of ninety drawings. "And why not a hundred sculptures to my century?" - He replied. We have made this exhibition of drawings. To please him, I brought him a lot of posters. "What is the name your wife?" - He asked. "Hildy".
He took a drawing depicting Jacqueline's profile, painted it and wrote the dedication: "For Hildy Beyeler. Then he took another reproduction: "What is the name of your best friend?". I called his name, another, more ... Picasso painted some sixty reproductions and wrote on them inscriptions. "You see, they will be happy" - said to me, by signing them.
- Oh, I have one friend, the painter, he would be very flattered when it receives your gift. But it is an abstract painter ....
- An abstract painter? All artists are brothers. What's his name?
- Mark Tobey.