Rare Picasso acquired by Scotland

(Image above) Pablo Picasso, Head, 1912. Charcoal on paper, 64.50 x 49.50 cm. Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. Photograph courtesy of Sotheby’s.

EDINBURGH - The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art announced the acquisition of a highly important drawing by Pablo Picasso, which goes on display for the first time, today. This purchase was made thanks to an enormously generous legacy made by Henry and Sula Walton. Dating from 1912, Head is a large charcoal drawing of exceptional quality.

Drawings from this crucial period in Picasso’s career are extremely rare and the larger works are nearly all in museum collections.

Henry and Sula Walton were particularly passionate about Picasso’s work, assembling a collection of more than a dozen prints by the artist. Picasso’s cubist work dates from about 1907 to 1915. Rather than try to copy nature, Picasso was interested in recreating it by pulling it apart and recomposing it. Picasso started cubism out of his desire to view an object from different sides, and re-compose these different views in a single picture.

Cubism is arguably the most important development in art since the Renaissance.

Simon Groom, Director of the Gallery of Modern Art announced: "I think Henry and Sula Walton would have been thrilled by this acquisition. They were passionate about art, passionate about the Gallery, and passionate that the very greatest artworks should be available for our visitors to see. This drawing lies right at the start of modern art. It is bold, dramatic and hugely inventive: with works such as this Picasso completely re-wrote the rules on art. There are comparable drawings in museums in Paris and New York, but nothing like it in any UK public collection. I think Henry and Sula would have been proud to change that".

At his death in 1973, most of his drawings passed to the French state and in turn became part of the new Musée Picasso in Paris.

This drawing belonged to Picasso’s grand-daughter, Marina Picasso, from whom it was purchased by Jan Krugier (1924-2008), one of the world’s leading dealers in modern art. He kept it for his own collection. His celebrated collection of drawings was offered for sale at a Sotheby’s auction in London in February this year; the Gallery acquired it directly at the auction.