Rafael Inglada, expert on Pablo Picasso: “The ‘abusing Picasso’ has become fashionable because it is what is sold today. This is terrible and absurd”

2023-09-23 18:14:43

Rafael Inglada (Málaga, 1963) lives in Málaga, in the very center of the first memory of Pablo Picasso, the artist to whom he has dedicated his life. To the point that not only is he part of the team that runs the Picasso Birthplace Museum, but it is known, because He has studied it day by day, the daily events of the artist. There will be four volumes and it will be titled ‘Picasso daily‘. The daily life of the artist. That is to say, each day of life, one by one, all the days of which there is evidence, are cited in four volumes that the museum for which he works will begin to publish at the end of the year.

None of those days that are recorded as part of the singular, full life that Picasso lived (from the time he was born in Malaga, in 1881, until he died in Mogins, France, in 1973, 50 years ago), has happened to him. unnoticed Rafael Inglada. While the first of those four volumes that will consist of this magnum and singular work appears, it has just hit the streets, compiled by Inglada himself, ‘Pablo Picasso. Book of conversations (Editorial Cántico. Collection The Tree of Silence). It is also an unusual work, an extraordinary anthology of the large number of meetings or interviews that the universal man from Malaga had throughout his long life as an artist. To talk about both events we asked, in writing, some questions to Inglada himself, as Picasso-like as the paintings of the artist who was his countryman.

Q. Every day of Picasso, England?

A. That is impossible, of course. There are times about which nothing is known, but there are every day of which there was some record… Not much is known about what he did in his childhood; But there will be everything he did according to a fairly intense chronology of everything that, when investigated, remains a record. There will be four volumes, so imagine how much activity. Note that it took me about two months to organize the name index…

P. Picasso dated everything, apparently.

A. Look at what he says to his friend Brasaï: “Why do you think I put a date on everything? Because it is not enough to know the works of an artist. It is also necessary to know when he did them, why, how, under what circumstances. There will undoubtedly be a science, which may be called the ‘science of man’, which will try to penetrate further into man through the man-creator. I think a lot about this science and I try to leave posterity with documentation that is as complete as possible. That’s why I put a date on everything I do.” And that is what I have looked for: what is dated by him or what has been dated, because throughout Picasso’s life there is like a giant puzzle, in which friends, children, lovers, women, trips appear. … I’ve been doing this since 1996, and the set of four volumes is what is truly original.

“It is not enough to know the works of an artist. It is also necessary to know when he made them, why, how, under what circumstances”

Pablo Picasso

Q. The great novel of Picasso’s life?

A. I serve for the investigation. I’m not good at writing novels. This, then, will be Picasso’s life, his diary, and that is why it is called: ‘Picasso daily’.

Q. Now you publish the artist’s ‘Book of Conversations’. What would you have asked Picasso yourself?

A. Really, I don’t know if I would have asked him anything. I am convinced that he would have answered me with a “Maybe”, very typical of him. Perhaps, with the interviews with the women, poets and dealers who shared his life, he would have gained more information.

Q. From what he responds to all the interviews that he has found, which ones did he think were the best dialogues?

A.All interviews-conversations always have a new discovery. The conversation between friends is not the same as with the journalist who addresses it. Personally, I prefer the meetings with his dealer, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. It is unprecedented that, for the first time, in the 21st century, they can be read for the first time in Spanish.

Q. And of the things that Picasso says, which ones have the greatest value for you?

A. Probably, those that are connected with two fundamental themes: his political commitment and the tastes and influences he has received from the pictorial tradition. His opinions on the painting that preceded him are fundamental.

Q. You have been searching for Picasso all your life. Has he already found it? Does it drain? Is it as he had dreamed?

R. Picasso is endless, you never quite find him. Despite so many years of study, I have a close idea of ​​how his life is related to his production. But, in the end, it is not what he had dreamed of because it is daily surprising. However, I believe I have a firm basis for thinking about how he acted in each circumstance.

Q. Over the years, many versions of Picasso’s life and attitudes have been found. Have some of those interpretations of his life changed the way you see him, and even relate to his memory?

A. No, I have always preferred to look at it from what I have personally researched about it. Even so, my conversations with his daughter, Maya Ruiz-Picasso, opened a different door for me, that is, they have allowed me to see him from another angle than the usual biographers see him, much closer, more personal.

Q. Current controversies point to you as someone who, at different times in your life, had an irregular, or reprehensible, relationship with women, and with your wives. Do you feel that this is the case, or do you find extenuating circumstances for what is said?

A. The ‘abusive Picasso’ has become fashionable because it is what is sold today. This is terrible and absurd. But, of course, they were almost always irregular relationships, often due to circumstances. And not always from him! Some of his women had already, when they entered his life, been separated or distanced from previous marriages (as in the cases of Fernande Olivier or Eva Gouel), even with children, or had ‘disembarked’ in Picasso after relationships. previous unsuccessful ones.

Q. How do you view Picasso’s human figure now? As a father, but also as a son, as a grandfather, as a human being, in short.

A. He always fought in his private life for what he believed was right. Probably, first there was his production, his creativity; then came the rest. The hundreds of photographs with his children, his wives and his lovers attest to this, they are the most reliable proof of his feelings towards this family universe that he, so wisely, knew how to reflect in his immeasurable creation. . We must not forget that we speak from the 21st century.

His personal world is condensed in his painting. From his hesitations to his most sure impulses”

Q. Does the painting, his painting, talk about him? Can you know him, as a human being, through painting?

A. His paintings, his drawings, his ceramics, his sculptures… are a single universe. Personally, I believe that his work, which is a ‘diary’ of his life, does not deceive us. Her personal world is condensed in her. From his hesitations to his most confident impulses. With each relationship there seems to be substantial changes in styles, which forms a multifaceted Picasso. But, despite this, what never changed were his motives, his themes to create. Picasso was an obsessive artist. And we see that in his portraits, in his landscapes, in his highly erotic scenes. Through this production we get to know the private Picasso much better, including his aesthetic tastes and his limitations.

Pablo Picasso and his dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. / ARCHIVE

Q. You are from Malaga, like the artist. What did that origin mean to Picasso? Today, how has Malaga assimilated the figure of Picasso?

A. I believe his birth in Malaga is fundamental to understanding many keys to his works, especially due to his contact with the Mediterranean. This sea is what covered a good part of his production, and the proximity of the fauns, the centaurs, the ‘joie de vivre’ to these shores are nothing more than a simulacrum of approaching the sea of ​​his childhood. It is in Picasso’s poetry where, really, everything from Malaga moves, everything from Andalusia and Spanish that he knew how to preserve in his long life.

Málaga, although it has taken many decades of effort, has finally assimilated Picasso as a hallmark. It has not been easy at all to convince ordinary Malaga residents, who falsely instilled in Picasso that he did not love his hometown. I believe that the great efforts of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Telmo, the Picasso Birthplace Museum and the Picasso Museum Málaga have been worth it to promote this recovery.

Q. An artist from Malaga, for example, Antonio Banderas, took it to celluloid. Was this a sufficient explanation of the figure of Picasso or are there nuances that those who made the film missed?

A. Well, I am not a film critic. I don’t really like this type of biographies on celluloid, and even less of Picasso. But it is my defect, because I see it from another perspective: that of someone who knows his work, his life, and I always believe that forced scenes arise or unverified data are invented, characters that are nothing like reality. But, I think, a figure as universal as this artist is also valued. And Antonio Banderas made an enormous effort in it.

Q. And has Málaga always taken this into consideration? What has been his relationship with the city in which he was born, and what does it give back to him?

A. No. Málaga has not always taken this into consideration (and political issues also come into play here). As I said, it has been a slow process, but one that, I think, has ended happily. There is still a lot of work ahead to do. Picasso will never be completely ‘captured’, and that is what is wonderful about his personality.

Although Picasso left Malaga when he was almost 10 years old—and then returned several more until his final departure in 1901—he never forgot his hometown. His own biographers and friends were in charge of revealing, through conversations and meetings, the love that he always professed for his hometown, what I call ‘paradise lost’. We must keep in mind that, after his departure, unlike what happened with Barcelona, ​​Picasso did not leave any direct family here. What’s more: he made lifelong friends in Catalonia, which is where he launched his first adventure to Paris.

Q. It is admirable what he has done for himself, for his knowledge, and also for those who have dedicated themselves to his work, as seen in this book that he has just published. Have you ever thought that perhaps you also have within that admiration a passion as if you yourself had been a friend or emulator of Picasso?

A. This is what Picasso said when he joined the PCF: it is like someone who goes, naturally, to a fountain. No, no, I am not an emulator of anyone or anything. I have come to think that, in my case, it is a way of life, and for almost forty years I have chosen it that way, and it was by chance. It is not a hobby, but a way of living through someone else’s creation.

Q. You are a person who dares to seek Picasso’s life day by day, without missing a single day. Symbolically, what does that dedication mean to you?

A. Well, many days we don’t know what happened, and this is logical! My intention with ‘Picasso daily’ is to follow the rhythm of his biography through his work especially. Give the reader-researcher the life of a man condensed into a single work. I started in 1996 and I still continue to discover data that for many seem insignificant, but for me they magnify his figure even more. A great puzzle that never, ever has an end and I am fully aware of this.