Picasso's etchings on display

Provided to China Daily

The 100 plates fall into six parts, while they need to be appreciated in their entirety to be a reflection of Picasso's life changes over time, as well as his anxieties over the worsening political situation at the dawn of World War II.

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For example, the Minotaur (the half-man-and-half-bull creature in Greek mythology) featured in Picasso's art is a reoccurring image in the set. He first appears as a tender, gloomy lover and later becomes a blind, weak loser.

Art critics suggest it indicates Picasso's marital vicissitudes juggling between his wife, Olga Khokhlova, and Marie-Therese Walter, his mistress and muse 28 years his junior.

The Vollard Suite is a study in etching for Picasso and the artist used a number of techniques, including aquatinting, dry point and hot embossing.

Vollard Suite gives viewers the feeling of looking down a small hallway of Picasso's artistic and personal life, says Alicia Gomet, Spanish curator from the OCI museum.

"Picasso carried out a profound self-examination of his contradictory feelings and impulses, in a way much like writing visual diaries. The set is a representative testament to his creative eruption when in the 1930s he experimented with different art styles," she says.