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Picasso: The Artist's Studio

Understanding Picasso Through Conservation (UPTC)

The Tate Gallery, London


See The Tate Images

Picasso manipulated his paints by varying the composition of the paint and his brushwork to create a range of effects from highly impastoed to smooth, gloss or matte surfaces. Glossy paints are thickly applied creating high impasto, others are utilised wet-in-wet into each other, while some are mixed on the canvas by the movements of the brush.

On the left, detail from the Nude Woman with Necklace, 1968 and on the right same detail taken in raking light from left to show texture and surface character.
Paint layers with smooth, flat and glossy surface have wrinkles as well as pinholes. Such paint defects are symptomatic of the use of household products. This was confirmed by the results of scientific analysis as seen in the full pyrogram of orange paint. The medium of the paint was seen to contain an alkyd resin (mass spectrum of phthalic anydride) and the pigment is a modern synthetic organic one.

The white paint used for the necklace is a traditional artist's oil paint. This was applied directly from the tube by squeezing paint on the surface of the canvas. Infrared spectra confirmed the identity of the white paint.