I just watched The Mystery of Picasso (Le mystère Picasso, 1956). If you haven’t seen it, take a look at the Wikipedia article.
It’s a 75-minute film in which Picasso creates 20 paintings and drawings while the camera records the process. There’s minimal dialogue between Picasso and the director, and an original musical score.
What struck me is how the paintings and drawings evolve. You see Picasso revise, cover, and rework sections repeatedly, for reasons that eluded me. There were many times I had incorrectly predicted that a particular creation was finished, only to watch it evolve further. I often found myself wishing Picasso had verbalized the internal dialogue that went on in his head as he made these creations.
For anyone interested in art and the creative process, it is a remarkable film.
After filming, all of the paintings and drawings were intentionally destroyed, so the only record of them is what you see on screen.
At one point (paraphrasing), Picasso says, “The public will think this painting took me ten minutes.” The director replies that it actually took five hours.
While make on particularly challenging painting, Picasso laments to the director. “It’s going very very badly.” Soon thereafter, “Besides, all I wanted to show was the unexpectedness of naked truth.” And later in reference to his creation, “It’s very bad.” Almost immediately thereafter, “I’ll take a new canvas to start again.”
Below are collages I made of five of Picasso’s works. Each collage is made up of a sequence of about a dozen screenshots. For some collages, I selected frames at regular intervals to keep each collage to a dozen frames. For other collages, I deliberately selected frames as I wanted to display particular stages in his creative process.
If you’re interested in the creative process, I think you’ll find these images compelling. Click on an image to enlarge it.
You can watch the film for free on Kanopy if you have a library card. It may be available elsewhere as well.
Hayward Zwerling
20 January 2026
Matador and the Bull, by Pablo Picasso 1956 (title created by Zwerling)
Reclining Nude Reading, by Pablo Picasso 1956 (title created by Zwerling)
Goat Head, by Pablo Picasso 1956 (title created by Zwerling)
Playtime, by Pablo Picasso 1956 (title created by Zwerling)
A Summer’s Day, by Pablo Picasso 1956 (title created by Zwerling)
Note the comment’s Picasso makes in the 9th, 11th, 12th, and 13th image. Click on image to enlarge.
