Picasso. The sketchbooks

Picasso used sketchbooks as a kind of diary in which he investigated and experimented in order to solve the problems inherent in his creative process. Such was the importance of these sketchbooks for the painter that in 1907 he wrote on the pages of one of them: “Je suis le cahier” (I am the sketchbook). Moreover, he never disposed of most of his sketchbooks, but instead kept them with him all his life.

The Museu Picasso Barcelona has nineteen of the one hundred and seventy-five sketchbooks that Picasso filled with his drawings between 1894 and 1967, and seventeen of these are from a donation made by the artist in 1970, corresponding to the period of his childhood and youth. The other two are acquisitions.

It is essential to display these sketchbooks to the public and make them available to specialists by means of a catalogue raisonné because of their importance and consistency and also the quality of the drawings they contain. They can therefore contribute to a greater understanding of the artist’s work and, in turn, lead to a comprehensively researched publication on the techniques, procedures and themes that appear in them.