Cover Design for G. Stein's Picasso 1983

Aydin Aghdashloo made this cover design for G. Stein’s Picasso, and the process feels so visible. It's like watching a thought unfold, one brushstroke at a time. I love the way Aghdashloo uses color here; it's not just descriptive, it's expressive. Look at the planes of color used to render the volume of Picasso's head, and how the colors shift from warm to cool. There's a real physicality to the paint, and you can almost feel the weight of it, especially around the ear. Each stroke seems deliberate, building up the image layer by layer. It gives the painting a certain energy, a sense of movement and change. The brushwork makes me think of Francis Bacon, the way he also captured the likeness of a sitter, and also the flux of lived experience, using juicy brushstrokes and a visceral approach to painting. Ultimately, this piece reminds us that art is always a conversation, an ongoing exchange of ideas across time. It's not about fixed meanings, but about embracing ambiguity and opening up new ways of seeing the world.