Picasso’s Dutch period

Do people know about Picasso’s early months in the Netherlands? I’ve read several biographies of him, and this must have been mentioned, but somehow it never registered in memory.

What I have here on my desk is Josep Palau i Fabre’s complete catalog of Picasso up through 1907. It shows Picasso as the guest of a friend in Alkmaar and Schoorldam during June-July 1905. He had to change trains in Haarlem to get there. I’ve seen no evidence that he ever made the quick trip over to Amsterdam, but maybe he did.

This was a key moment for Picasso, right at about the shift from the Blue to the Rose period. His art from the Netherlands (which depicts windmills and wooden-shoed local women, I kid you not) is definitely not the least bit gloomy. Then again, from the paintings of the preceding chapter it’s clear that he was already starting to pull out of the blues in Paris, so it would be too much to say that he had his big conversion on Dutch soil. But it’s still a fascinating interlude in his career.