Video: watch Picasso make a masterpiece

Published 20 February 2020

Filmed in 1956, ‘Le Mystère Picasso’ is a documentary capturing Picasso in full creative flow. Three of the works he’s seen making in the film are now the walls of the RA, in ‘Picasso and Paper’ – watch how one of them came to be, in this short film…

  • ‘Le Mystère Picasso’

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    Le Mystère Picasso is a remarkable documentary film made in 1956 by French director, Henri-Georges Clouzot, in which stop-action and time-lapse photography are used to capture Picasso at work. Not many of the works he created for the documentary survive – but three hang in our exhibition, Picasso and Paper; two especially restored for the show. Here’s the story of one of them, Visage: Head of a Faun.

    Picasso and Paper is at the RA until 13 April.


    • Picasso and Paper

      25 January – 13 April

      Picasso didn’t just draw on paper – he tore it, burnt it, and made it three-dimensional. From studies for Guernica to a 4.8-metre-wide collage, this exhibition brings together more than 300 works on paper spanning the artist’s 80-year career.

      Immerse yourself in Picasso’s world of paper and discover how – with this everyday material we know so well – he found the means to explore the furthest reaches of his creativity.

      Picasso and Paper