Picasso: The Line

The first comprehensive study of Picasso’s mastery of line drawing and its centrality to his artistic process

This beautiful new study provides an insightful reevaluation of the role of line in the work of Pablo Picasso (1881–1973). Picasso pursued drawing assiduously throughout his career, ranging across media such as pen and pencil, charcoal, and papier collé. This book brings together eighty extraordinary drawings spanning the most important phases of Picasso’s career. Contributors discuss the artist’s intensive exploration of line in relation to three-dimensional form, both in the context of the European artistic tradition and in analyses of selected works. Drawing emerges as central to the artist’s process—a creative process that reveals another facet of Picasso’s genius for making art out of the simplest of means.

The first in-depth exploration of the artist’s line drawings, Picasso The Line conveys how essential these powerful works are within the artist’s oeuvre. As Picasso himself stated: “line drawings are the only ones that cannot be imitated.”