EPPH - Every Painter Paints Himself

Picasso on Himself

The best art historians are the artists themselves. What I provide is a pale imitation of what a great master could explain to you but, almost without exception, they keep quiet. Both Lucian Freud and Philip Pearlstein are still alive, both well aware that every painter paints himself – indeed they practice it themselves – but they say little. Freud enigmatically once said: “Everything is a portrait and everything is autobiographical.”

William Rubin, the celebrated curator at the Museum of Modern Art, visited Picasso several times in the last years of his life and was surprised to discover that the Spanish master had more interest in Leonardo, the creator of the Mona Lisa, than he had realized. This is what he wrote:

"The comparison between Picasso and Leonardo may, at first glance, seem far-fetched or irrelevant. As a young art historian, I myself would probably have rejected any connection between their work as mere coincidence. However, in the course of a series of extended visits with Picasso during the last three years of his life, I found myself surprised by the relative frequency with which the name of Leonardo passed the artist’s lips – a greater frequency than is apparent in the various conversations with Picasso published by his intimates and friends. Alas, of Picasso’s various references to the Renaissance master, the only one which appears verbatim in my notes is his citation of Leonardo’s celebrated remark: “the painter always paints himself.”¹

1. Picasso and Portraiture (Museum of Modern Art) 1996, p. 90