Beacon has put up an "exhibit" on an old warehouse at the east end of main street. I will show my favorite of the 24 pieces that are hung in the window frames outside of the building. Perhaps I will show some of the other pieces in later blogs, but here is my favorite.
This piece was of particular interest to me because it is a new depiction of Picasso's 1937 "Guernica", and that piece is one of my favorites by Picasso. Picasso began painting "Guernica" 15 days after the German Nazis bombed the Spanish city of Guernica during the Spanish civil war. Some powerful images in there.
Wine Stuff
While I was doing a little research on "Guernica" I started wondering, since I have no wine on which to report, what did Picasso enjoy drinking. Well, I did not do an exhaustive search, but I could not find anything in particular.
I did however find his last words. The night before Picasso's death, he and his wife, Jaqueline, had a dinner party. Late in the evening, Picasso said "Drink to me, drink to my health, you know I can't drink anymore." Then he retired to his studio to paint, which he did until 3AM. He died the next morning.
On top of that, Picasso was born in the city of Malaga in Spain. Malaga is also the name of the fortified wine that comes from the city of Malaga. Fortified wines are interesting because they are holdovers from a time when normal wine was likely to go bad during shipping. So early wine shippers fortified the wine with spirits, usually brandy, to help it withstand the time, temperature, and pressure changes that take place during shipping. Port is the most common example of a fortified wine, and most are sweet like port. Malaga, to sum up ;) was not considered a serious wine until recently. Currently the Malaga wine "Molino Real" is considered one of the greatest wines from Spain.
I have never tasted one of these wines, but would love to hear a review from anyone who has :)
Happy drinking,
-PMo
