The British Spanish Society-Instituto Cervantes London Annual Lecture: Picasso, the Spaniard

Even today, many art lovers and art historians discuss Picasso regarding the School of Paris.  Despite many years in exile, Picasso continued to engage profoundly with his Spanish pictorial heritage and inspire the younger generation of Spanish artists, including Antonio Saura and Antoni Tapies.  Perhaps his most extraordinary encounter came in 1957 where his months-long mano a mano confrontation with Velazquez’s Las Meninas revealed Picasso’s irreverent gift for deconstruction.

Gijs van Hensbergen is a Dutch art historian, food critic and Hispanist. After training at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London for a BA Hons and Postgraduate research in the History of Art he worked for the Knoedler Gallery, in London and New York. Van Hensbergen’s projects and TV work include his collaboration with John Richardson on A Life of Picasso.