Picasso, the foreigner

Based on outstanding research by historian Annie Cohen-Solal, the exhibition reframes our understanding of the work and trajectory of Picasso, one of the greatest artists of all time.

It seems that everything has been written about Picasso. No other body of work has provoked as much passion, debate and controversy. But who knows about the obstacles that faced the young genius who first reached Paris in time for the 1900 Universal Exhibition, without speaking a word of French?  How did Picasso find his way in the modern metropolis, a place still shattered by the Dreyfus Affair? How did he navigate his first friendships, his first successes in Paris? Why was his application for naturalization denied in 1940? And how did he feel when his work was celebrated all over the western world, but remained invisible in the museums of his host country until 1947?

These are are some of the questions that Picasso the Foreigner addresses and answers. Picasso’s condition as a foreigner in France –even a pariah– deeply structured  his artistic creativity. Six years of research in previously unexplored archives reveal a drastically new narrative of Picasso’s years in France, a country of sometimes obsolete cultural institutions. In June 1901, at the time of his first exhibition at the Vollard Gallery, the police first opened a file about the young artist, then monitored him for decades. For forty years, in the eyes of French administrations, Picasso was stigmatized as an intruder, a radical, an avant-garde artist – all labels that he seemingly ignored, but that undeniably affected his daily life and work.

Beyond his considerable artistic oeuvre, Picasso was also a shrewd political strategist, becoming a significant contributor to France’s cultural modernization. In 1955, he left Paris for ever to settle in the Midi. There, he reinvented himself as a global artist and illustrious foreigner, while anchoring his work with local craftsmen, and openly contesting the standards of good taste which held sway in the French museum world. Today, in the midst of a global migration crisis, it appears essential, urgent and necessary  to reassess Picasso’s trajectory and work. His odyssey as a foreigner and his agency as an artist are powerful models for our times.

Through exceptional loans by the Musée National Picasso in Paris, the Museu Picasso in Barcelona and the Musée Picasso in Antibes, as well as other institutions such as the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, the National Gallery in Prague, the Centre Pompidou-MNAM, MAMVP, the Masurel-LaM collection, the Musée du Quai Branly and private collections, Picasso l’étranger establishes a new link between the artist’s works of art, archives (documents, photographs) and films.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue, bringing together 25 writers and intellectuals from across disciplines and boundaries to consider the question of the foreigner. Picasso the Foreigner is a sequel to Un Étranger nommé Picasso (Paris: Fayard, April 2021), which was awarded the Prix Femina. Cohen Solal’s exhaustively researched account of Picasso and France is to be published by Farrar, Staux & Giroux (New York) in April 2023.