“He made it the whole world”: Damien Hirst’s favourite Pablo Picasso painting
When David Bowie worked with Damien Hirst, the artist encouraged the ‘Starman’ to splatter paint onto a blank canvas. The simplicity of this act, paired with its straightforward gateway to creativity, reminded Bowie of Pablo Picasso. This moment underscored the blend of spontaneity and artistry that both Bowie and Hirst admired, echoing Picasso’s innovative spirit.
Because Picasso’s legacy is so globally monumental, his diverse body of work seems entirely inextricable from the form itself, achieving the incredible feat of extending beyond painting to sculpture, printmaking, ceramics, and stage design. His work also transcended mere generic formulas, touching various corners of the Blue Period, Rose Period, and Surrealism.
As one of the leading experimentalists, Picasso’s work took the fundamental aspects of established art and placed them in a space where anything was possible. The Blue Room, for instance, saw the artist focussing on human suffering, depicting a woman bathing in a sparse, blue-tinted room. A true reflection of the artist’s relationship with the melancholy.
For someone like Hirst, who Bowie once said lives his fear of death overtly in his paintings, resonating with Picasso’s work means more than just artistic admiration. It’s a connection that lurks far beneath the surface, glistening reflections of two mutual interests with different manifestations of the same thing. In a way, challenging perceptions with images has become the defining force of both artists.
Describing his favourite Picasso piece, The Three Dancers, for The Guardian, Hirst explained the artist’s main appeal, saying he “took a huge amount of what was possible, and took it for himself”.
Describing his seemingly mystical energy and ability to blend the real with the surreal, he added: “He was brilliant at that balance between the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional, the illusion of space and real space – and all using real life as a departure point. But, you know, he never left the picture plane, which is brilliant. He made it the whole world, which is difficult to do.”
Created in 1925 during Picasso’s surrealist phase, Picasso’s angular, almost skeletal dancers capture a sense of frenetic energy and emotional intensity. As someone who is often reconciled with anguish and personal turmoil, Hirst’s fascination with the piece likely comes from his own ability to understand abstraction in life’s difficulties and how the complex emotional quality of his work feels completely timeless.
Although many of Hirst’s favourites tackle the sinister, like The Ghost of a Flea, Picasso’s provocative take on the subject conveyed various deep emotional and psychological states that captured the even darker elements of human existence, the kind that remains relevant through the ages. As Hirst put it, “Picassos are infinitely awesome”.
