Lucien Clergue: Encuentros con Picasso, Exhibition, Picasso Museum, Barcelona: 16 June-20 October 2022

Lucien Clergue entered the photography industry from a young age. On the 5th April 1953, he met Picasso by chance at a bullfight and took the opportunity to photograph him. They instantly clicked, giving way to a long and close friendship that lasted the rest of their lifetimes. Both men were living in the south of France and leading busy lives, but every now and then they would meet up and go to a bullfight, a gypsy party, or spend the day at Picasso’s villa in Cannes. Between 1953 and 1971 they met up a total of 27 times, allowing Clergue to capture Picasso in his most natural and comfortable environments.

In 2016 the Picasso Museum bought Clergue’s entire collection of photographs, almost 600 black-and-white vintage prints, which are now being exhibited for the first time. The snapshots show Picasso in different stages of life, scenarios and frames of mind, giving us a glimpse into the personal life of this legendary Spanish artist.

The exhibition highlights photography and the photographer. The Lucien Clergue archive is a set of photographic documents that narrate the stories shared by Picasso and Clergue, but it is also an extraordinary corpus of author photographs, and this is where the Museum wants to put the spotlight on this occasion.