Bernard Cousin

 

Picasso was a politically committed artist, joining the French Communist Party in 1944, he offered his "Dove of Peace" to the World Peace Congress in 1949. But he never used the "socialist realism" style of the Soviet model, so highly praised by those responsible for culture in the French Communist Party during the Cold War. His departure for Vallauris, where he lived from 1948 to 1955, does not mark a change in his political commitment, as his 1951 canvas "massacre in Korea"  shows. Indeed he remained faithful to the French Communist Party, which he always maintained was his "country", he the Spaniard in exile. He was also a public figure, of the people and wanting to be close to the people. He wanted to break with the image of the artist locked in his ivory tower. A sort of star of the art world, Picasso became involved in life of the village, often the driving and creative force behind many cultural events. During the summer of 1949, the town of Vallauris offered him a disaffected chapel so he could paint images of War and Peace, linked to the war in Korea. As a way of thanking them, Picasso offered the town his sculpture "The Sheep Man", unveiled with much ceremony. His stay in Vallauris gave him fresh artistic life: he painted a series of canvases and sketches full of energy and the joy of life. He went back to working on assembled, welded sculptures (The Goat or The Guenon), did more engravings and lithographs and above all pottery. It was at Vallauris that Picasso began his series of canvases which were dialogues with the masters: Manet, Delacroix, Courbet and Velasquez. In 1955 Picasso left Vallauris for Cannes, where he made Les Menines a reference to Velasquez. Picasso was not by any means the only artist living on the Riviera: Matisse had been at Vence since 1943, where he decorated the famous chapel.