Linocut works by Picasso to meet public in Liverpool

Linocuts by the celebrated artist Picasso were previewed here on Wednesday ahead of their exhibition outside of the British Museum.

The exhibition at the National Museum Liverpool's Lady Lever Art Gallery opens to the public Friday and will continue until January.

Sandra Penketh, NML's director of art galleries, said: "To be exhibiting work by an artist of the caliber of Pablo Picasso, arguably the most influential European artist of the 20th century, is certainly something worth celebrating."

Xanthe Brooke, the museum's curator of European fine art, said: "Picasso Linocuts from the British Museum reveals how, even towards the end of his career, when he was in his eighties, Picasso was an exceptionally innovative artist."

The Picasso Linocuts from the British Museum highlight a particularly prodigious period in the artist's life.

He made prints throughout his long career, with more than 2,500 works principally in etching, lithography and linocut. Picasso's earliest linocut was from 1939, but his major period of working in this medium was from the mid 1950s to the early 1960s. Endit