PICASSO AND GREECE

Publication of Picasso and Greece coincides with a major exhibition, organised by the Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation (Museum of Contemporary Art, Andros, 27 June - 26 September 2004), in association with the Musee Picasso in Paris, and supported by the Greek Ministry of Culture as one of the official 'Cultural Olympiad' events, has been conceived to coincide with the 2004 summer Olympic Games held in Athens. It focuses on the ancient Greek references to be found in the work of one of thegreatest artists of the twentieth century and features introductory texts by the two curators, Kyriakos Koutsomallis, Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Goulandris Foundation, and Jean Clair, Director of the Musee Picasso. This volumealso includes essays by distinguished experts and scholars - Alain Pasquier, Director of the Department of Greek Antiquities in the Louvre; Alexander Farnoux, Professor of Archaeology at the University Paris IV-Sorbonne; Patrice Triboux and Dominique Dupuis-Labbe, curators at the Musee Picasso; Niki Loizidi, Professor of Art History at the University of Thessaloniki and Elizabeth Cowling, curator and author of a recent exhibition and book on Picasso - together with an extensive chronology of the artist and bibliography. The ninety or so carefully chosen works by Picasso are all beautifully reproduced in lavish colour plates, while the essays exploring the influence that Hellenic culture had on the great artist and the ways in which he so skilfully re-interpreted it are fully illustrated with further black and white images.