Picasso and The Spanish Classics

Project Room | November 2, 2023 – February 4, 2024

The exhibition will explore Picasso’s response to Spanish literature, in particular his images inspired by two 17th-century literary giants, Luis de Góngora y Argote and Miguel de Cervantes. Featuring a recent acquisition, Picasso’s suite of prints, Góngora’s Vingt poëmes (1948), it will display rarely seen works of art alongside seventeenth-century editions and manuscripts. It will highlight Picasso’s reinterpretation of Velázquez’s portrait of the poet, the artist’s vision of the ideal woman, and his depiction of the iconic figures from Cervantes’s novel Don Quixote. The exhibition will thus focus on the way Picasso reinterpreted the literary classics of his native land.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

The Hispanic Society’s programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.