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Pablo Picasso

21 octobre 1966
04m 07s
Ref. 00040

Information

Summary :

Informal conversation with Pablo Picasso, living on the French Riviera at Mougins, regarding his public appearances, television and his paintings.

Media type :
Vidéo
Broadcast date :
21 octobre 1966
Source :
ORTF (Collection: Panorama )
Personnalité(s) :
Jacqueline Picasso / Princesse Margaret / Adam Saulnier / Pablo Picasso / Jacques Prévert
Themes :
Places :

Context

A major artist of the 20th century, Pablo Ruiz Picasso (1881, Malaga - 1973, Mougins) was initiated into painting very early in his life. His father was a professor at the School of Fine Art in Barcelona, to which he was admitted at fourteen years old, before joining the Royal Academy in Madrid. This classic training did not stop him from frequenting cafes and houses of ill-repute, where he found the theme for theDemoiselles d'Avignon, his first foray into cubism. Before the war, he founded the movement to revolutionise figuration with Braque, through inspiration from Cézanne and primitive art.

Picasso still tried out other styles, from melancholic expressionism in the Bleue et Rose periods (1901-1907) to surrealism (1925-1936), passing by neo-classicism (1916-1924) and on to other disciplines such as sculpture, engravings, ceramics. His work would never evolve towards complete abstraction and recurrent characters reappeared: harlequins, minotaur, horses, African masks and the feminine figures of his multiple conquests.

An engaged artist without going directly into combat, Picasso spent the two wars in Paris, denounced Francoism through paintings and joined the communist party in 1944, without giving up his hedonistic way of life. He refused to return to a Francoist Spain until his death.

Cécile Olive

Transcription

(noises)
Pablo Picasso
Once when I was in Nice, I was given a little piece of paper to read, when we received, I don't know how many thousands and thousands of youths from the world. I don't know if you remember, this happened many years ago. So there I was, on the monument of the Dead, you know, huge, with a crowd that came from La Bocca, just like that, down to Nice, you know, by road, and so then, I read... I don't know what because it was very short and it wasn't me that wrote it, still, but finally, I spoke a few words. I was a big success, apparently. I don't know what they heard because, myself, I'm not used to speaking in front of a microphone.
Adam Saulnier
But last night, it was fantastic. I looked at you in the middle of this huge hall. You were small, almost lost in the middle of this crowd. Were you still impressed by everything?
Pablo Picasso
In any case, I was impressed, very touched by this type of sympathy, love or whatever, or friendship that so many people showed me.
Adam Saulnier
Exactly, you like the word "love" very much, Pablo Picasso.
Pablo Picasso
Yes. Even, one day, a young girl who interviewed me for I don't know what newspaper, I told her this: "You know, for me, there is only love", right?
Adam Saulnier
You like people a lot?
Pablo Picasso
I love people very much.
Adam Saulnier
Everyone?
Pablo Picasso
If there weren't people, I think I would even love a doorknob, you know, a chamberpot, anything.
Adam Saulnier
Do you love television as well? Not really.
Pablo Picasso
I've got it. I've got it. I started one day because there was princess Margaret's wedding and someone loaned me a camera. So I saw princess Margaret marching and I continued afterwards.
Adam Saulnier
You know what would be fantastic, when we have you in front of television cameras? It would be to leave you all alone, free and you would be very capable of doing fabulous things for the viewers, you would invent things for them.
Pablo Picasso
Probably. Sometimes, I find magnificent things on television, very pretty things, that I like, that interest me. But sometimes, it's sometimes horrible. I say this because we're here, both of us all alone. No, it's not true: everybody's listening.
Adam Saulnier
If you had to choose, by yourself, the era, the painting, the canvas that had to survive you, what painting would it be? What period would it be from?
Pablo Picasso
I don't know. That's hard. I did them with intentions that were so attached to the moment, to the era and state in which everyone and myself were that it's very difficult. During the time of Guernica, I did Guernica, you know. It was a big catastrophe, the same beginning as many others that we've covered, you know? But anyways, that's the way it goes. It's personal, isn't it? Basically, they're memories that we write by ourselves, a diary...
Adam Saulnier
You are extremely young, Pablo Picasso.
Pablo Picasso
You know my age. It might be a young age.
(Music)
Adam Saulnier
Here, in the place known as Notre Dame, lives Picasso.
(Music)
Adam Saulnier
Picasso and his wife Jacqueline.
(Music)
Adam Saulnier
A report that's never been seen before. Picasso in one of his Mougins studios.
(Music)
Adam Saulnier
And Jacques Prévert has written a poem that Yves Montand will recite to us...