Having never been to the Musée Picasso in Paris, I made it my mission to pay a visit on my long-awaited journey to Europe. I must say I was not disappointed.
Picasso arrived in Paris in 1900, during a Paris Expo, and it became his home for… well, the rest of his life! So, if any city should have a Picasso-dedicated museum, it’s probably Paris. And this museum is not to be overlooked when you’re visiting the city of lights. The museum boasts a huge collection of Pablo Picasso’s artworks, with a big and very well organised archive which is being restructured to offer a state-of-the-art research facility.
The current exhibition at the Musée Picasso Paris is designed around the 8 new acquisitions of artworks from Maya Ruiz-Picasso, the daughter of the artist, consisting of five paintings, two sculptures, and a sketch book. Curated by Diana Widmaier-Ruiz-Picasso and Emilia Philippot, it offers a look into Picasso’s practice, highlighting the influences of his contemporaries, his family relationships, and the humanity of this iconic artist.
Mini sculptures out of cardboard? Objects reimagined as art? Oui! This exhibition has some daring and inspiring examples of how Picasso handled the relationship between object and art. Duchamp’s famous urinal is paired with Picasso’s bull head sculpture made of a discarded bike seat. Then we move on to Eduard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe and Picasso’s cubist versions of the famous painting. The final part of the exhibit is a salon hang of some paintings from the final of Picasso’s exhibition during his lifetime. This collection features the figure of musketeer as a consistent presence alongside Picasso’s more common motifs: the artist read Dumas’s novel in the final years of his life, which had a profound influence on his art.
If you have ever read the memoires of Fernande Olivier (Picasso’s muse, model, and life partner during his early Cubism years), you probably have the impression of the artist as a sharp, focused and even unforgiving individual when it comes to his art. However, this exhibition reveals a softer side to the artist. The many child portraits expose his genuine affection for his children, and even depict him as a family man – at least in his own way. Maya’s portraits dominate Picasso’s child-portrait oeuvre, and the exhibition reveals the peculiarities of the family relationships in the Picasso family tree. Look out for personal items like hair and fingernails, sent in boxes to loved ones to protect them from evil spirits. (Yes, Picasso was superstitious!)
Overall it is a sensitive and insightful portrayal of the father-daughter relationship, its highlights and its challenges. A special highlight of this exhibition is the portrait of Émilie Marguerite Walter (or “Mémé”), the artist’s mother-in-law and grandmother to Maya Ruiz-Picasso. None of the hard lines of Picasso’s cubist paintings are visible in this portrait, leaving a very sympathetic portrayal of a smiling woman, for whom Picasso clearly had genuine affection. Overall a thoughtful and sensitive exhibit which reveals a human side to the artist.
PS: As an aside, the framing techniques at Musée Picasso caught my attention. I like the intention not to disrupt or change the artist’s final vision: the side edges of the paintings – finished or not – are not hidden by the frame but are left for the audience to see and judge.
