At the pinnacle of his profession, in 1935 when he was just 53, Pablo Picasso stopped painting.

Instead, he wrote hundreds of poems in French and Spanish, with surrealist titles like "On the back of the immense slice of burning melon."

The poems, along with other artifacts of Picasso's literary fixations, are part of a quietly stunning exhibition, "Picasso and the Allure of Language" on view through May 24 at the Yale University Art Gallery.

Picasso didn't just put words on paper; he drew them in elegant, open swirling letters, with his own invented abstract symbols dotting the page.

Through 70 collages and paintings, book illustrations and poems, all save two culled from Yale's holdings, the show subtly suggests that writing and reading helped transform Picasso's visual thinking.

(He did, of course, go back to painting, the next year, churning out the famous series of colorful portraits showing his mistress Marie-Therese Walter, one of which is on view.)

Picasso, well-known as a lady's man extraordinaire, turns out to be a studious man of letters as well. He palled around Paris with poets Max Jacob and Guillaume Apollinaire. Picasso even made etchings of a naked dancing woman for Apollinaire's 1905 version of "Salome." And there was Gertrude Stein, his patron, friend and, occasionally, unwitting collaborator.

One exquisite 1914 collage sums up the daily texture of bohemian Parisian life. Stein and her partner, Alice B. Toklas, went to visit Picasso, who was out, so they left a calling card with their names printed on it.

Picasso put the card into a collage with the inscription "contributions indirectes," a not-so-veiled reference to Stein's support. When he went to drop it off, the couple was out, so he left the collage as his own calling card. The word play and artistic one-upmanship make Picasso suddenly full of fun.

It's enough to make a Picasso lover curious: What other pictorial tricks did he pick up from his reading, writing and literary friends?