The Studio | Nahmad Projects
Pablo Picasso’s L’atelier (The Studio) was painted in 1956 at La Californie, an opulent villa above Cannes where he had recently moved - and, obviously, had a studio. The fancy furniture and lush sunny view through the high windows both feature in the work. But your eye is drawn irresistibly to the canvas at the centre. It is blank - pure white.
At least, that’s where my eye was drawn. I saw it at a new exhibition at Nahmad Projects devoted to depictions of artists’ studios. Around it hang interiors and still lifes by Braque, de Chirico, Raoul Dufy and Matisse. Artists paint what’s around them, so it’s no surprise the studio is a frequent feature. In fact, the empty canvas at the centre of Picasso’s is a direct quote from Courbet’s The Artist’s Studio (1855).
L’atelier (The Studio) (1956)
The London exhibition presents these studios as places of exchange, visited by friends, collectors and dealers. It contextualises the old masters with a few contemporary responses by Anna Freeman Bentley, a UK-based painter who studied the historic works before making her own for the show. Her studios are less opulent than Picasso’s: London rooms with a tendency towards the humdrum.
But both artists arrive at the same point. They both portray fixtures, fittings, tools of the trade. But neither shows me what happens inside the room. The moment when the work began.
Picasso, the greatest painter of his century, put a blank canvas in the middle of his picture and left it there. Everything in the room points at it. It caught my eye. It told me nothing.
The Studio: Anna Freeman Bentley in dialogue with 20th century masters is at Nahmad Projects (London). 14 October - 11 December 2026