Young Picasso: dir Phil Grabsky (2019)

Documentarist Phil Grabsky has carved a niche for himself by concentrating for the most part on films about artists – composers first, then more recently painters; Young Picasso is both typical of this work and one the best examples of it. The film looks at the early period in the artist’s life from his birth in Málaga in 1881 to the shocked reactions to Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, painted in 1907 when he was just 25. It’s true that even greater shocks lay ahead for the art world, with increasingly innovative and stylised work, but the art of Picasso’s youth – ranging from childhood paintings through the Blue Period (1901-1904) to the Rose Period (1904 -1906) and Les Demoiselles – are a fascinating story of how he got there from here.

In Young Picasso, a number of curators comment on Picasso’s development, along with his grandson Olivier Widmaier Picasso; we also here the words of Picasso himself and others responding to his art. Grabsky lets modern-day shots indicate the atmosphere of the important locations of his development, Málaga, Barcelona and Paris; but the past is captured vividly enough, not least through the tragic end of his friend Carlos Casagema and the influence of his mistress Fernande Olivier. Grabsky delivers all of this in a well-judged and unforced approach. There’s nothing here in the way of revelations or shocks; what you do get is a consistently reliable, intelligent and highly watchable introduction to Picasso. Recommended.