This museum claims to have a nearly complete collection of the lithographic works of Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), but they do not have them all on display at once. Only a few rooms of the museum actually show Picasso’s graphics, and these are rotated periodically on an “A-Z” basis. When I was there, they were showing “C” for “Corrida“, meaning lithographs having to do with bullfighting.
I don’t seem to have taken any photos of the lithographs, either because photography wasn’t allowed or because I had lost interest in bullfighting.
Actually, I’ve never been particularly interested in bullfighting, except that during one of my visits to Spain in the 1960s I went to a bullfight and then tried to read the reviews in the next day’s newspapers. My Spanish was much better then than it is now, but reading the bullfighting reviews was still quite a struggle, because they were written in a strange kind of stilted old-fashioned Spanish with elaborate constructions that were of no use whatever in everyday conversation or even for reading Spanish books.
Helmut Newton exhibition poster in Münster
The rest of the six-hundred square meters of display space in the Graphics Museum is devoted to special exhibitions. When I was there, they were showing some of the large erotic photographs by Helmut Newton (1920-2004), who turns out to have been born in Berlin under the name of Helmut Neustädter. He fled from Germany just in time to escape from the Nazis, and changed his name to Helmut Newton after becoming an Australian citizen. His photos were mainly of the type made popular by Playboy magazine in the mid-20th century, featuring tall, long-legged young women who seemed to have been doing some strenuous dieting.
Photo of Helmut Newton with his camera
Unfortunately, I was there too soon to see the next exhibition, which was called “The Future of the Past” and dealt with “Modern Photography in the 19th Century”.
Street entrance to the Graphics Museum, with cyclists
My photos in this post are from 2009. I revised the text in 2021.
See more posts on Münster (Westfalen), Germany.
See also: Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.
I remember losing what juvenile zest for bullfighting I might have had when watching it on television in a small bar in rural Spain. They had a sporty commentary, with weights, ages and stats (of the bulls) flashed up on screen, demystifying the whole thing and leaving nothing but a sense of the general wantonness. Here is a link showing the tenuous link between Newton and the corrida by way of Charlotte Rampling: https://robinsaikia.org/2021/05/10/charlotte-rampling-by-helmut-newton/
Must be interesting for sure. Almost everything Picasso did was brilliant, at least for me, and the lithographs are definitely no exception…
I went to a couple of bullfights in Spain in 1964. I hadn’t intended to, but it was a holiday or a festival and nothing else was going on.
I can recall visiting Picasso museum in a old house in Barcelona. Photography restrictions applied. Besides the colorful paintings, I also remember the colorful ice-cream I enjoyed on that street.
Have to keep this in mind for when I go back to Münster.