PAUL¨S WEB: PAINTINGS ON THE WALL

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What links Paul, Kanye West and Dustin Hoffman with the artist Pablo Picasso?
Find out in the Paul and Adam Jacques-penned article: 'Paintings On The Wall - Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)' here...

Legend has it that Picasso was once sitting in a café in Paris when an admirer approached him and asked if he'd create a quick sketch for him on a paper napkin. Picasso whipped out a pen, doodled a sketch, and said, "That’ll be 1 million francs". "But it only took you thirty seconds!" Exclaims the man. "Yes," said Picasso. "But it took me 50 years to learn how to draw that in thirty seconds." Whether this was just a popular local myth doesn’t really matter: in the skilled hands of one of the world’s wealthiest and most famous artists, a blank napkin was worth far more than the highest denominational note.

But how do you solve a problem like Pablo Picasso? He applied his brushstrokes like a child, painting eyes in the wrong places and noses at impossible angles – yet could paint like an Old Master, producing the lifelike 'The Old Fisherman', at just 15. The classically-trained Spaniard notched up a treasure trove of art, creating over 70,000 works, with a little help from his hundreds of mistresses-come-muses over his 70-odd year career painting, sculpting and drawing his way to global celebrity.

Read More ...HERE

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A PS from PM:

"Due to my love of Picasso's work, I was admiring his picture 'The Old Guitarist' (1904) and was intrigued by the chord he was playing. I transferred it to my own guitar and found that it was a beautiful chord. I then set myself the task of writing a piece that would use only two finger chords. I was telling this story to Kanye West when I was working with him and whistled the melody for him saying we might want to use it. He sent me back the track ‘All Day' where the tune had morphed into a heavy urban riff and was the intro of the song. At the end of 'All Day', you can hear me playing the melody in its original form. All thanks to Picasso.

"My other connection with Picasso was many years ago when Dustin Hoffman, the actor, showed me Picasso's obituary which was headlined 'Picasso's last words'. Dustin asked me if I could write a song around these words and I did. It ended up as a track on Band on the Run called, not surprisingly, 'Picasso's Last Words (Drink To Me)'."

- Paul McCartney, August 2015