I’ll never forget my trip to the Art Institute of Chicago.
I visited a few years ago.
Tucked away in a corner up a flight of stairs was a Picasso called The Old Guitarist.
The painting shows an old man in rags strumming on a guitar.
His body is hunched and his fingers are withered. The canvas is swamped with an eerie blue tinge.
It’s haunting and it’s memorable.
But the story behind the painting makes it even more remarkable.
See, when I strolled over to the panel description and started reading, my jaw dropped.
Picasso painted The Old Guitarist over the top of another painting.
The Old Guitarist started out as a mother, child, bull and calf.
And at some point Picasso decided he wasn’t happy with this scene of agricultural bliss.
He went back to the drawing board…
(or should that be his easel?)
… and painted a new work of art right over the top. The Old Guitarist.
So far so good.
But what I didn’t realise was that the face of the mother is still completely visible.
So after reading the description I had another look at the painting.
And like a ghost, a young woman’s head materialised out of the canvas: