By Cliff Bellamy

cbellamy@heraldsun.com; 419-6744

DURHAM -- Of her friend artist Pablo Picasso, American expatriate writer Gertrude Stein said he did not seek the company of painters. Stein, in a 1938 book about Picasso, wrote, "His friends in Paris were writers rather than painters, why have painters for friends when he could paint as he could paint."

The book from which that quotation comes is now on view as part of the exhibit "Picasso and the Allure of Language," which opens today at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. The exhibit focuses on Picasso's relationships with writers and how those relationships and language affected his work.

Besides Stein (she and her brother Leo were Picasso's first patrons), the exhibit also examines his relationship to poet Guillaume Apollinaire, poet Max Jacob, poet Pierre Reverdy and other writers.

The exhibit includes 60 works Picasso did between 1900 and 1969. It focuses on his life and work after he moved from his native Spain to the bohemian Montmartre section of Paris in 1904. The exhibit is drawn from collections of the Yale University Art Gallery and Yale's rare book and manuscript library, and the Raymond and Patsy Nasher collection in Dallas. The Nasher is the second and final venue for the exhibit.

Accompanying "Allure of Language" is a separate exhibit "Africa and Picasso," inspired by Picasso's interest in African art and drawn from the Nasher Museum's collection. The objects in this exhibit are similar to the works Picasso collected.

The "Language" exhibit "breaks new scholarly ground in exploring Picasso's relationship with writers," Kimerly Rorschach, director of the Nasher, said during an exhibit preview Wednesday. Susan Greenberg Fisher, a curator at the Yale gallery and curator of the Picasso show, said the idea for the exhibit came when she was looking through Yale's archives of Gertrude Stein's papers. She realized that no one had done an exhibit "that looked at Picasso's close relationship with writers throughout his career." She said she wants viewers to understand "how language reshaped his imagination," and became part of his work.

"He was always looking for new ideas, so that's why he would turn to writers," Fisher said.

Fisher cited a collage Picasso did for Stein and Alice Toklas as an example of the intimate friendships he had with writers. Stein and Toklas went to see Picasso, who was not at his house. They left a calling card, which Picasso took and used as the basis for a collage ("Dice, Packet of Cigarettes, and Visiting-Card") that includes a cigarette pack (Toklas was a smoker) and other items in his friends' lives. That piece captures Picasso's playful and humorous side and "really embodies the spirit of the exhibition," Fisher said.

This exhibit has numerous Stein-related items, including an audio loop of Stein reading a 1923 poem "If I Told Him," a poem she wrote for Picasso.

Another writer with whom Picasso collaborated was the poet Pierre Reverdy. In the mid-1940s Picasso began working with lithography, and the results of that experimentation can be seen in Picasso's illustrations for Reverdy's 1948 book of poems "Le chant des morts (The Song of the Dead)," a 117-page book that is a response to the horrors of World War II. Picasso painted a series of figures that, according to an exhibit description, "variously frame the page, demarcate its fold, and highlight its margins and edges."

At the Nasher, the entire book (not bound) is in a display case. Because the book is unbound, Fisher said she was able to pull some of the pages for display, and six panels are mounted on the wall. Visitors also may scroll through a digital slide show reproduction of every page in "Le chant des morts."

This exhibit also has a copy of the first book that Picasso illustrated, "Saint Matorel," an autobiographical novel by poet Jacob, identified in the exhibit as "the first Cubist-illustrated book."

Picasso himself began writing in 1935, taking a one-year hiatus from visual art. He continued writing until 1959, producing two plays, and hundreds of poems. This exhibit includes a display case of number of Picasso's own written works. A 1968 translation of Picasso's poem "Hunk of Skin," published by City Lights Books of San Francisco, is here, along with a 1947 "Untitled Poem by Picasso." Also included is a copy of his play "Dialogue from Act Four of Les quatre petites filles," published in 1970, with the artist's illustrations. A copy of a 1935 Paris journal titled "Cahiers d'art" contains several of the artist's earliest poems.

WHAT: "Picasso and the Allure of Language"

WHEN: Opening today and continuing through Jan. 3

WHERE: Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, 2001 Campus Drive, at Anderson Street

ADMISSION: Admission to this exhibit is $10 for adults, $5 for children 7 to 17, free for children under 6. The museum is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday, and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.

MORE INFORMATION: For other Picasso-related events, visit nasher.duke.edu/picasso