Picasso: tête-à-tête

Michael Cary | Gagosian Quarterly | 11th April 2025

Phillip Guston was vilified when, in 1970, he changed from abstract expressionism to figuration. Little wonder then that artists usually stick with a single style. Not Picasso though. He thought that sticking to one style simply led to “affectation”. In fact, he celebrated that he had “no style” and even went so far as to deny that his work could be divided into “periods”. “What counts is a certain consistency in the ideas. And when this consistency exists … things always work out.”