The Donation of David Douglas Duncan, II

David Douglas Duncan, born in 1916 in Kansas City, Missouri, embarked on his professional career as a war photojournalist in the Western Pacific during the Second World War. Robert Capa had promised to introduce him to Picasso but died in the First Indochina War before he could arrange it. Duncan finally met the artist on February 1956. The encounter marked the beginning of a warm-hearted friendship between Duncan and Picasso that would last until the artist’s death in 1973. Their relationship was captured in Duncan’s photographs, especially those produced between 1956 and 1962, which give us a glimpse of Picasso’s life and artistic processes as seen through the eyes of a friend.

On occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Museu Picasso, Barcelona, David Douglas Duncan donated 163 b/w photographs and two colour photographs. We are now exhibiting the second half of this donation, with a selection of prints displayed together with works from our collection. In some cases the photographs are displayed alongside the original piece; in others they are compared and contrasted with pieces inspired by the same subject matter.