Pelopidas Museum Exhibits

Pelopidas Museum

The museum owes its name to the old Theban warrior Pelopidas, legendary hero who in addition to fight to liberate his people from the tyranny of the Spartans, also stood out in history as a man of infinite kindness and love for his fellow men, becoming a symbol of the alliance and idealism that would serve as inspiration.

Our institution takes its name from this mythical figure and the values it represents, such as the fight for ideals, altruism and alliance, to make them the axis of our struggle to promote and enhance art in society.

Pelopidas Museum is a project that has already been in gestation for more than a year, the result of tremendous effort and dedication; it comprises a heap of emotions and longings, of shared dreams and ideals that strive to leave a trace and to contribute to the cultural enrichment of our society, and to delight art lovers, through this unique and exquisite space. The place was officially inaugurated on November 15th, 2007, to receive all visitors and to share with them the passion for Art that motivated its founder to create this space.

Mission

Pelopidas Museum is an institution for the community and its visitors, devoted to facilitate access to knowledge, to enhance and raise interest in the arts, permanently spreading cultural values and expressions. It is a high quality space, for its services, facilities and impact on the community it serves. Pelopidas Museum promotes and supports innovative programs focused on visual arts, culture and science, that bring people closer not only to the knowledge of the different artistic disciplines but to the very aesthetic appreciation and the history comprised in its works.

The artistic heritage of the museum is available to all its visitor, both local and foreigner from all countries around the world that come to Cancún to enjoy the paradisiacal beaches and they find more than that, complimenting their experience with such a beautiful place for art.

Pelópidas has a permanent collection entitled “Imaginary Museum”, name corresponding to the original concept in which the “author’s fakes” were created in the beginning of the 80’s by Italian copyist Daniele Dondé; works of art that reproduce the technique of a great variety of renowned painters.

The “author’s fakes” are pieces masterly elaborated with the same techniques and materials of the real ones, expressing the emotion of the original authors. They present slight differences regarding shades, size of the canvas and composition (some motive is omitted, added o modified).

The “Imaginary Museum” grants the possibility to show works of great fame and price from the great painting masters, whose original works are prohibitive for many people, be it for its location when they belong to a museum in other country or, worse, to private collections; representing a totally different proposal in America.

The collection “Imaginary Museum” on display at Pelopidas, gathers for the first time in history the great European and American impressionist masters, and it offers a unique opportunity in the whole American continent to enjoy the beauty of more than a hundred renowned works that have left their mark on the world.

“Imaginary Museum” consists of 131 works from the great European and American impressionist and neo impressionist masters, some select pieces of the Flemish School, as well as some classics among which stand out “La Grande Odalisque” of Ingres and Canaletto’s “vedutes”; it offers a wide range of paintings from Monet’s “Water Lilies” to Gustav Klimt’s “The Kiss”.

Imaginary Museum

Permanent Collections

One of the most outstanding and successful exhibitions of Pelopidas Museum has been held by a private collection of surreal art, which has uncovered the impressive talent of the Catalan painter Quim Hereu, whose great formats full of an original and delirious vision of fantasy, show the influence of Dali, De Chirico, and –according to some critics, of the very Bosco- submerging each one of our visitors in a dream travel that inescapably leads them to perplexity.

With an autodidactic formation, this talented painter has a perfect technique and great knowledge of oils, sanguines and charcoal. He feels a special predilection for big formats, his smallest canvases have been 1.80 by 1.80 mts and he has even made paintings 9 mts long. His first studio was in his birthplace, Girona city, later, he moved to Carrer Nou, and later still set up in Plà de Martís, a place of legendary beauty where the artist would take delight at nightfall in gazing at the nymph-seducing satyrs and centaurs perched amidst branches that float weightless among the cypresses. From his studio the artist could see the dusk light reflecting on the salt marshes and feel the clean and sharp tramontaine wind that would bring him the unreal shadow of august figures. Seeking more space, he moved his workshop again, though he maintained his studio in Plà de Martís. Finally, in January 2000, he transitioned completely to his new site, a former turn-of-the-century factory in the old part of Banyoles, homely and generous space, made-to-measure for his needs. In the monastic concentration of that studio, Hereu submerged himself in a dream-visited sleep, and gradually there appeared the first sketches, the first drawings which, following a slow metamorphosis they were to become paintings. Well-elaborated mixtures, products of an artistic alchemy, arise as a consequence of the strange references the artist made to his journeys. Highly personal interpretation of the people of the desert, of the ruins and temples of all times and of all cultures: the Benedictines of Amer, the European Renaissance, Catalan Romanesque, Egyptian civilization and the forgotten ( and Roman ) cities of Libya. But above all, the centre of Quim Hereu’s universe remained the humans being. His fantasies, his anguish and his dreams could not escape manipulation by his paintbrushes.

Meta-realism, imaginary and dreamlike current succeed one another as fruits of a well-peopled imagination and a highly painstaking technique. Mythological and human beings, floating in that last light of the days, make up a private world. Hereu does not usually hold exhibitions, but he works for collectors all over the world that are particularly and genuinely interested in his work, which is why his work is notably and deliberately scarce (and thus, most priced). Nevertheless, his magic canvases have to his name some exhibitions in Catalonia, Spain, France, Balearic Islands, and United States, among others.

The select pieces that make up our collection proceed from different series the painter has made in a direct allusion to the countries he has visited, the cultures that have touched his heart and the worlds they have created in his mind; winning the fascination and admiration of each and every one of our visitors.

Quim Hereu

Pelópidas Museum today is pleased with the growth of the institution and hence the cultural proposal that has made in our community. The institution has sought in its search for an eclectic profile, to bring different alternatives, opposites aesthetic and style, leading to different artists, both local and from other parts of the country and abroad to share their art in this space, and contributing at the same time that people could expand their vision of art and culture as entertainment, marking interesting possible ways to bring the world of art to the viewer.

Precisely this reasoning has led us to go beyond the original concept of the project, expanding the permanent platform beyond the art. Pelopidas Museum is next to open a new facet of its space, leading to the integration of art, science and environmentalism, for the enjoyment of all attendees.

As a result of an alliance with the Climate Institute of Washington, Pelópidas Museum brings to Cancun for the first time throughout Latin America, Virtual Planet, a scientific project implemented in a multidisciplinary way and with edge technology.

This is a virtual projection globe via satellite connection with the National Center for Global Climate Observing of high altitude (Mexico), with which you can observe the planet in real time, and will have a specialized program to cover various topics such as climate change, global warming, the formation of storms, the energy in the earth, the solar system and of course, issues relating to art and culture in general.

This sophisticated system is a valuable tool for the dissemination of current issues of global importance, such as ecology and global effects of human actions. Virtual Planet will enable us to ensure awareness of art and also create a high impact approach to science, technology and ecology, through information and education programs specialist for both children and adults.

VIRTUAL WORLDVanguard and diversity of the cultural offering

The creation of this alliance with the Climate Institute, puts Pelopidas Museum at the same level of best museums in the world and brings to the forefront, an important cultural, scientific and educational contribution to the community, allowing us to enrich our space proposal and opportunities for encounter between science, environmental conscience and knowledge in general, through the high-tech of Virtual Planet.

The first National High Altitude Center for Global Climate Observing is located in Cofre de Perote, Veracruz, 4 thousand 200 meters above sea level and it is the world’s highest point observing center above the observatories located at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, the Swiss Alps or the central Tibetan plateau in China.

This observatory joins Mexico in the global Earth observation, as well as in the maps of the international network of climate monitoring to the long-term study of delicate global atmospheric balance that has been affected by human activities over the past century; it works in coordination with international organizations, including the administration of Seas and Oceans in the U.S. Climate Institute in Washington and the UN, which have provided the most comprehensive support and appreciation for this effort and also maintains close links with the Cenapred and the National Weather Service.

Virtual Planet of Pelopidas Museum will be connected to the satellite antenna at the National High Altitude Center for Global Climate Observing, and will take each of our visitors for a wonderful holographic journey in which they could observe the earth in real-time, and expand their knowledge on environmental problems around the world and the behavior of several natural phenomena. No doubt, a unique and unforgettable experience.

Furthermore, Pelopidas Museum has a gallery space ready for different traveling exhibitions of original work, both of international and national and local artists. The Museum’s purpose is to offer art lovers different options, changing the exhibitions periodically and renovating its space with each new collection, making use of the infinite resources of the art world for its display and the delight of the visitors.

This space is arranged, on one hand, for its marketing with the artists interested in exhibiting their work in this lovely place, and also, it has a patronage character that allows the support in one way or another of talented budding artists. Most of work that is exhibited in our halls is for sale, and Pelopidas’ proposal is a way to redeem the marketing of art through the honest promotion of its beauty, the possibility to bring the people closer to their different disciplines and to enhance, through profitability, the artistic creation.

The profile of the temporary exhibitions tends always to display collections diametrically different that show the eclectic and innovative spirit of the museum, whose intention is to delight art lovers, whatever their preferences may be. Some exhibitions are for sale and some others are on display just to share with all our visitors the magnificence of art.

Since the museum opened its doors, has hosted over 10 exhibitions among which are the following:

Temporal Exhibitions

A group exhibition that took place as a result of the announcement that the museum opened to all local artists. The contest invited all the artists of the region attending the execution of a work by allusion to the figure of the Theban warrior who gives name to the museum, and was this competition the first step to cultural and artistic promotion locally, and as part of the tourist destination.

Pelopidas was the first competition set up to link the talent from Cancún and encourage a moment of reflection about the need to retrieve the values that modern society has abandoned. Values Pelopidas the Theban warrior conveyed during his lifetime, such as justice, honesty, loyalty, humility, peace, unity, freedom, among others.

Enrolled more than 80 artists, of whom only 45 were selected to compete and his works were exhibited for a month, since November 30, the day also announced the 4 winners.

The sample consisted of works that, while containing the same subject, gave way to a range of visions and possibilities, thanks to the different techniques and styles of their creators, ranging from oil paintings, watercolor, sculpture in clay and recycled resins, to the quilt art and ink.

“Pelopidas First Contest”November, 2007.

Daniele Dondé was in Pelopidas Museum for an exhibit devoted to Marilyn Monroe, his inspiring muse and regarded by the artist as a modern Mona Lisa. Amid the glamour that corresponds to the style inherent in these works (Glamour Art) on December 12, 2007 the master Daniele Dondé, better known in our country for his famous “false author’s”, presented on an exclusive basis throughout the country his original work. A collection that not only reflects his creativity and innovative spirit, but also his peculiar stamp.

The exhibition consists of 37 three-dimensional works, painted with fluorescent paint on special canvases. The presentation had, as a part of the opening ceremony, a performance by a beautiful model who personified the muse of Dondé’s dreams, and what he called the special touch to the evening.

Master Dondé, introduced his new “Marilyn Rock”, dressed entirely in gold, gems and precious stones. 37 works of art never seen before in Mexico, made by Dondé, the historic leader of the “Fashion Rock Movement.”

In 1986 in New York, Dondé presented his tribute to Marilyn Monroe at the Forbes Gallery Foundation in Manhattan, where all works were sold to people who so far are the most assiduous collectors of art works made by Dondé.

For over 20 years, Dondé has exhibited his work in Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Moscow, New York, Paris, London, Zurich, Monte Carlo, St Tropez, Palm Beach, Miami, Istanbul and other nations and major galleries in the world. And for the first time in México, we hosted his presentation “From Monalisa to Marilyn” for a limited period from December 12 2007 to January 15, 2008

“From Mona Lisa to Marilyn”December, 2007

The four artists, who were winners in the First Pelopidas Contest in the categories of watercolor, abstract painting, figurative painting, and sculpture, presented their work in a collective exhibition in which artists showed their work that made especially for this exhibition. Four different visions of the world, the feelings and of the very same art.

The inauguration of this exhibition was held on February 7, 2008, an event that surprised the guests, the museography designed especially for the occasion and original performances that complement the environment.

The exhibition consisted of the most outstanding works of local artists who won the contest, artists whose talent has not gone unnoticed in the eyes of critics. Their works were hosted in this space for a period of three weeks as part of the prizes in the contest mentioned above, and delight our visitors for their freshness, creativity and variety of techniques and styles.

The exhibitors were:

Tabata Flores a young promise of just 25 years old, earned first place in the category of figurative painting, his work is characterized by great strength and sensitivity of his compositions.

Sergio Romero, professor, architect and artist who was the first creditor in the category of sculpture, with a unique mixed media work named “intellect of new battles”, and whose works traveled to Europe to be exhibited in Spain and France, after the exposure.

Alicia Ochoa, winner in the category of watercolor, specializes in this technique with a history of more than 20 years, is a member of the Mexican Society of watercolors and has several awards nationwide.

Rodrigo Caso, a painter born in Mexico City whose talent for abstract painting has earned him some national awards and exhibitions in various galleries both Mexico City and Cancun.

“Pelopidas Winners”February, 2008

This one-day exhibition was the celebration on the second anniversary of the magazine “chewing gum,” which brought together young people to admire the alternative art through photography, painting, performance and music, on Saturday February 16 in Museo Pelopidas. Creative forms of expression attracted hundreds of young people looking for something more than beach and disco. In addition to that exhibit, young people also found out the proposals outlined here and was prey to the charm and surprise to see the space.

We dare to make a special mention about the important labor Museo Pelópidas is doing in this city (this is the only Museum) to promote culture and art in all its disciplines, even more, to create a link between these and the local youth.

This time the exhibition was aimed specifically at young people of Cancun, the event went beyond freshness and creativity, first with Macu’s work, an intense and creative Argentinean graphic designer who displayed a dozen funny pictures, collages pieces with childish style, in which she used very different materials like paper, acrylic and other graphic elements.

On the other hand, the photographer Jaime Martinez from Monterrey, exhibited a dozen digital pictures with a line that tends to pop culture in which teenage girls posed before the lens in unconventional situations. Martinez has participated in numerous exhibitions in Mexico and countries like Spain and Germany, with a style that has managed to position himself in the tastes of young audiences around the world through spontaneous images full of mystery.

In the Museum’s Black Box, different photographs were shown of the contest which had previously summoned the Chewing gum Magazine, into universities and high schools from this city and also internationally, by virtual media such as MySpace, Hi5 and Facebook. Thousands photographs came from different countries and were published in the April edition of the magazine. The event also involved Golden Rainbow Kid (Edgar Echegaray), a talented young compositor who invited an interesting proposal that brought the audience around him with the interpretations of his original guitar. A stitch disparate that attracted attention was the art performance named Metamorfacil, in which a girl dressed as a hairdresser Nelly Villalobos) was cutting hair to the beat of a DJ. This project was announced as the “Award for Young Creators” of CONACULTA-Fonca (National Committee for Culture and Arts,) in the category Visual Arts and Alternative Media that truly broke schemes.

Expression Fest Vol.2 had a high profile in the community and achieve a rapprochement between the Museum and younger citizens, giving the first step to a better insight into what it refers to cultural promotion. Chewing-Gum Magazine is created and directed by Paola Azcorra, Liliana Salas Juarez and Alicia Rodríguez Ávila, young Mexican graduates of La Salle University, who have managed to break into publishing world and have consolidated, barely two years of starting, the graphic-cultural project for young people that today is seen as one of the strongest.

“Expression Fest Volume 2”February 16, 2008

Pelopidas Museum presented this exhibition with the proposal of the four artists from Cancun which participated in the International Biennale of Florence 2007. This exposition was composed with works by Gabriela Tosello, Erick Sommet, Daniela Palacios and Rubén Carrasco, allowing us to offer once again a full sample of the diversity of styles that make up this exhibit, and which present the personal stamp each artist. The exhibition materializes after that Pelopidas Museum sponsored Cancun three artists invited to participate in the issuance of the Sixth Biennale of Contemporary Art in Florence, where exposed along more than 700 artists from 73 different nations. In 2001 the UNESCO recognized the Florence Biennale as an official participant in the program “Dialogue between cultures,” it also won the appreciation of the Pattern of the President of Italy in addition to the sponsorship of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Tuscany Region, the Province, the Municipality of Florence and several embassies. Pelopidas Museum is proud to be able to help these young artists to represent our country and our community, and this exciting exhibition was organized for the purpose of sharing the enthusiasm and devotion to the national art with all our visitors.

“Between Cancun and Florence”May, 2008.

The artists: Erick Sommet is a French artist and designer who after living in different parts of Europe and the United States decided to make his adopted country of Mexico. He participates with 3 oil paintings with a photographic intervention in the middle point of the canvas. These, are large format works full of imagination, wit and visual poetry.

“My work is a return to the state of innocence. The photograph, in its capacity of recording media, is the sensation received by the visual cells. The painting becomes the support of my emotions under the direction of my imagination: my reading of the photo and my vision. The painting is internalized and is the attempt to reject the lived one: the plundering of social human being trough the search of the real-me.”

Gabriela Tosello, painter born in Argentina and nationalized as Mexican, arrived in Cancun after living in Puerto Vallarta where she participated in several solo and group exhibitions. She now lives in Isla Mujeres and she considers Mexico as an exceptional and inspiring country, to which she devoted her works to be presented in Italy.

“The space is blank, I said nothing, then I decide to interrupt the silence with my brushstroke. The hand, closely related to my mind but not receiving specific data from it, begins to dance and the line goes up, down, turn, screws, penetrates...”

Rubén Carrasco was born in Puebla, and engages in art at the early age of 9 years. Get to Cancun when he was 21 and since that time has continued to create and experiment with various materials that reflect the union between nature and industry. The general concept of the work of Ruben Carrasco rises from the observation of the phenomenon that we are, as individuals and society: The aftermath of our presence generate the nuances and textures of our future, a future that becomes past every day and leaves debris in its wake.

Debris has become the pictorial language of Rubén to compare the man with inorganic material (which like us suffers the ravages of time). “The Pendulum” shows a worn wooden pendulum suspended in time on an abstract background that symbolizes the future. The nails describe the transcendent of every moment and invite us to pause with them, to reflect on ourselves.

Daniela Palacios. With the centrality of the color and texture that characterize her paintings, always inviting the eyes to touch and feel, the artist brings to Pelopidas a wealth of mysticism and eroticism through fantasy characters, unrelated to any reality but always breaking into it, always stalking. Sirens. Symbols of supernatural beauty and femininity, always sensual and irresistible. A presentation of four works that tell the story of the mythical sirens, from a deep and dark perspective in which the beauty and eroticism female coexist with the destructive instinct and the domination as a result of the weaknesses caused by the pleasures of lust. Women with fish tail angry and bound because of their natural chastity, turn on sailors as deceptive and evil devourers of men.

With over 60 exhibitions since 1987 in various places of Mexico and international exhibitions, her work was one of those chosen to represent Cancun at the Biennale in Florence and to our satisfaction, exhibiting for the first time in Pelopidas with this magnificent pictorial narrative.

Gabriela

Tose

llo

Daniela

Pala

cio

s

Erick

Som

me

t

On July 18, 2008 was opened to the public exhibition called “souls on the flight”, resulting in a singular event in the success that attendees enjoyed the proposal of four artists from Michoacán, Oaxaca and Cancun.

This magnificent group consisted of figurative painting of Oscar Solis, Juana Cortés and Christian Borbolla, as well as abstract sculpture by Raúl Monge. This was a fresh and strong sample, which aimed to bring the audience inside the man behind the painting, and that meeting point between art and the emotion of the viewer.

Among poems that reveal the personal message of the paintings and the strength of their images, “Souls on the flight” was a spectacular success and remained on display until September 7 of that year, at which time more than 7000 visitors admired and praised her beauty. Atman, Nefes, Psykhe, anima… different words that give name to something whose existence we can not verify. Talking about what can not be explained only refers to a point: the feeling. Philosophers, mystics, men of all religions agree that the soul is the breath, the life force that moves us. We all live and we all feel, we all passed through this life questioning our very existence, looking for the reason of doing as if the very act was not the finality in itself, while we dance trough those light moments we like to call happiness. The same goes with art, the eternal source of unanswered questions.

The artwork can be measured, valued, studied, sold, reproduced, but it loses its role when we can not feel it. The bill of a good painting is undeniable, it is obvious, but for someone to be called an artist in addition to talent, it is necessary the ability to create empathy with the viewer. The perfect communion between the creator and those who delight to, it is an embrace of souls.

Christian Borbolla and his dark-light illuminates reality, Juana Cortez and her multicolored faces of wise eyes, Raul Monge releasing abstract figures that may fly in the sky, and ethereal women of Oscar Solis. Four artists who embody the life force that moves them to further develop, existing in their own work.” Tania Hernández.

“Souls on the flight”July, 2008.

JUANA CORTEZ“All women in the world can be contained in one painting by Juana. I know it because I have seen it. Juana becomes a brush and woman exists only by naming her, beyond the realism of her art. Her women have fire in their eyes and a superhuman force is manifested as sweetness. Perhaps all of its beauty is not in the skin of oil or in the flawless technique that gives them life. In the hand of Juana, the painting goes beyond its own rhetoric; you see the life inside it, the enigma of the character, the evocation that overtakes and replace the apparent reality. Here it is, the art of Juana Cortez. If you get caught by the picture, there will be a clear dialogue, a privilege of silences. It is right there in the painting, where everything speaks. -Oscar Solis “

OSCAR SOLIS“It happened that I turned on the radio and someone said, “Birds? Sometimes…”. The phrase was knocking the door, although I could not know the radio station where the phrase was said or the context what it was about, the idea came from there. Birds, sometimes. I’ve seen that they don’t come from the sky or from the cardinal points, perhaps they come from the expectation and they have a feeling of flying flowers. The birds announce the elusive height. The movements of their wings trace the light and their feathers reflect the sky, it describes something of what is known as indecipherable, ineffable. They shake the wings and deny the mysteries of the wind. The certainty hesitates but persists. We must seek and keep the wing in the memory just to express. We must propose the image and let it speak. This is how we are going on the days. -Oscar Solis “

CHRISTIAN BORBOLLA “I barely see them and they just jump on me, reminding me how much fear we humans have, evoking the stillness of our lips, the incessant and nervous flicker that betrays the gagged heart, that one diminished because of a fight to death between our desires and reason. I barely see them and they just interrupt my amazement and whisper: “this is reality, the same one to wich you are hiding. No need to look further”. All what I posses are fading in the brushstrokes of their exposed skin, time and space die, and any proportion of them conceived. My eyes are embedded and I am unable to see, but the mirror reveals me naked such as they are, facing the restrictions of my own soul, and only then I am free. Wendolin Taboada.

RAÚL MONGE “This magnificent sculptor moves his studio so naturally as the fingers of his hands. That is the way how is projected the placidity with which he animates stones, wood, steel, marble and bronze. These show a real trade made with love, to penetrate the secrets of his reverie, carrying every piece of material to an organic geometry.

Rope tied to a mountain or a mountain giving birth to an angel... who cares! The key is his pleasure for doing, the rest is left to the reading of each individual who contemplates his work and give a sense of their own secrets, just as your winged mountains have grown on me. One can only expect for his imagination and iron will to reveal another truth” -Águeda Lozano.

Christian Borbolla

Juana Cortez

Oscar Solís

Raúl Monge

Thanks to the collaboration between the State Government of Quintana Roo, BANCAJA Foundation and Pelopidas Foundation, the December 4, 2008 was inaugurated the exhibition “Picasso. Vollard Suite” at the Pelopidas Museum; leading to an unprecedented event in the entire state.

BANCAJA Foundation, which holds the largest collection of artwork by Pablo Picasso, brought to Mexico for the first time the series Vollard Suite, one hundred engravings dating from 1930 to 1937 and considered one of the most important historical-artistic testimonies of XX century.

Rounded of absolute expectation, leaders celebrated the completion of this important event and opened the door to begin the first tour of the exhibition for the guests of magnanimous event, around 600 people, among them prominent figures from the financial world, business and art of Cancun, Mexico, Spain and the United States.

A night without a doubt significantly important to the cultural sphere of the state and the entire country, which has been echoed at the international level thanks to the coverage of large number of journalists and co-workers of the various communication media, nationally and internationally.

“Picasso. Suite Vollard”December 2008 - March, 2009.

Vollard Suite

The collection of engravings by Pablo Picasso, called Vollard Suite, one of the most important series of graphic art history, only comparable in quality and extension to earlier engravings made by Rembrandt and Goya, takes its name from the art dealer Ambroise Vollard, for who Picasso made these plates between September 1930 and June 1937. In this collection the malagueño artist employs a novel and surprising variety of techniques like burin, drypoint, etching and aquatint to sugar.

The set of 100 engravings appeared in 1939 in two formats: a large one (760 x 500 mm.) on Avitelado paper signed by the artist with red and black pencil, with 50 pieces per plate, and a smaller one(445 x 340 mm .) on Montval paper laid with the mark water “Vollard” or “Picasso” in circulation of 250 copies.

The final edition of the series was started in 1939, before Vollard’s death in July of that year, and the plates were shown for the first time in 1979 in an exhibition at the Modern Art Museum of the City of Paris , from which it went later to the Picasso Museum.

The “Vollard Suite” is one of the most important historical-artistic testimonies of the twentieth century. The complicated history of origin of the work, its thematic variety and diversity technique, which brings together many different styles of preparation (burin, etching, aquatint, drypoint and watery, and combined), encouraged its spread and there are just few existing collections.

The complete series includes three portraits of Ambroise Vollard, five plates covering “The Battle of Love” - also called Rape - and in 1933, forty-six plates on “The workshop of the sculptor” (forty engravings of the March 20 andalusia May 5, 1933 and six between January and March 1934), four plates on “Rembrandt” (made from 27 to 31 July 1934), fifteen plates on “The Blind Minotaur” (made from May 17 to 18 June and from September 22 to October 22, 1933), and twenty-seven free theme compositions . The prints do not follow any logical sequence in their images, the temporal chronology rather due to external and personal events of the artist.

The Suite Vollard is fully involved in that picassian dialectic oscillating between order and violence, disfigurement and classicism, serenity and chaos. The series brings together all the influences of Picasso, his delusions of grandeur and his deep Mediterranean culture.

In this series, the artist develops, like a diary, his personal obsessions around four thematic issues: the workshop of the sculptor, the Minotaur, Rembrandt and the battle of love.

‘The workshop of the sculptor’ work includes the most intense of the series, by bringing together 46 of the 100 engravings in which the relationship develops between the erotic artist and his model and lover, Marie-Thérèse Walter.

The small series of ‘The Battle of Love’ is related to the previous one and the painter also develops the erotic relationship, and it even becomes more violent and even purple, to represent scenes of rape.

The plates of the series of ‘The Minotaur’ are more tender and melancholic as well as dramatic, in which the artist identifies with that character, with its criminal and sex drive, but also with its tenderness and loneliness, his suffering with .

Finally, four plates are devoted to the figure of ‘Rembrandt’, another great master of engraving with which Picasso had a relationship of admiration and rivalry.

This series provides insight into the multiplicity of materials and the formal imagination, the brilliance of his quality craftsmanship, his irrepressible joy in the time for experimentation, and the internal logic of his artistic creation. These prints were created in a spontaneous way. As an example, eleven of the engravings were done in just four days. That is why this series breathes the spirit of freedom, independence and generosity, which is the precondition for artistic metamorphosis.