Pablo Picasso, Paul Eluard. A sublime friendship
Pablo Picasso. Paul Eluard. Llapis de grafit sobre paper, 1936. Musée d’art et d’histoire Paul Eluard – Saint-Denis. Cliché :Irène Andréani © Successió Pablo Picasso, VEGAP, Madrid 2019
Paul Eluard was Picasso’s best friend from 1935 onwards. Following the disappearance of Apollinaire, Eluard was the only poet with who Picasso could converse and exchange or share ideas. Quickly, the surrealist poet became literally captivated by the demiurge-artist, “who insists of seeing everything, on projecting onto the screen of man everything he can understand, admit or transform, figure and transfigure... With Picasso, the walls come down”. Only Eluard’s death, on 18 November 1952, would put an end to this brotherhood.
Emmanuel Guigon, Malén Gual