Caricature of General de Gaulle, and Two Women, 1968

Pablo Picasso

Narrator: This etching was made in April 1968, just weeks before the student revolt broke out in Paris. Picasso was living a secluded life in Mougins but followed the turbulent events with keen interest.
 
In Caricature of General de Gaulle, and Two Women, he turns his attention to the French president, who appears here as a grotesque caricature accompanied by two nude women. The lines are quick, rhythmic and almost laughing – as though the artist were cutting his immediate response to authority straight into the copper plate.

Although Picasso did not participate in the protests of 1968, he remained sceptical of political power and censorship. For many young activists, Picasso was not part of the old establishment but a model of uncompromising creativity.

The etching belongs to the extensive Suite 347, created in the same year. In these images, eroticism, theatre and politics combine into a vivid, sometimes burlesque world. Here, satire becomes a way of probing the workings of power: de Gaulle is both elevated and undermined.