2012 Public Lecture
July 25th, 8:30pm
Kaplan Concert Hall
PICASSO, SPACE, TIME, GUERNICA
In 1937, Pablo Picasso, at age fifty-six, was considered the world's foremost living painter. Due to his popularity, the Government of the Spanish Republic commissioned Picasso to create an enormous mural painting almost 8 meters wide to be shown at the Paris International World's Fair.
Picasso's mind was blank for several months, but when Nazi air raiders destroyed the city of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), his unchained anger led him to an intense and passionate creative process, which culminated in an iconic 20th century masterpiece.
From the 45 sketches that served to prepare the painting and the ten pictures his partner Dora Maar took during the creation of the painting, we can deduce the process followed by Picasso during the 36 days of fury in which he painted Guernica.
His process also relates to the parallel paths followed by cubist artists and scientists like Einstein, Hilbert, Riemann and Poincare who were working on the same problem: find a new and more effective way of representing space and time.
This exciting public lecture will be given by Javier Barrallo, Professor of Mathematics at The University of the Basque Country in San Sebastián, Spain.
