Introduction to the unmissable exhibition
“Everything has been written about Picasso, you might say. No other artist has aroused as much debate, controversy, passion.”
So says the first card one encounters when visiting the “Picasso the Foreigner” Exhibition organized by the Fondazione Roma at Palazzo Cipolla until June 29, 2025.
How can we disagree?
Picasso’s life and challenges as a foreigner
Obstacles on arrival in Paris
The label artwork keep it up:
“But how many know what obstacles the young genius faced when he arrived in Paris in 1900, without speaking a word of French?
Why seven hundred of his finest Cubist paintings were confiscated and subsequently sold at auction?
These and many other questions hitherto left unanswered are addressed here.”
True, but with what results? I would say not exactly convincing.
The thesis expounded to the bitter end in this exhibition and without contradiction, is that Pablo Picasso, besides being an artistic genius, was, humanly speaking, a kind of superhero.
Stays and travel in Europe
Ready for all experiences he lived first in a smugglers’ village:
“…Gósol, a Pyrenean village of mountaineers-contrabandistas reachable only by mule…”
then in Paris:
“at the Bateau-Lavoir…one of the most precarious and dilapidated buildings in the capital…torrid dwellings in summer, freezing in winter.”
The Bateau Lavoir the famous artist’s studio in the heart of Paris
The Bateau Lavoir (floating wash-house) was a symbol of bohemian life on the hill of Montmartre. It is one of the most precarious and dilapidated buildings in the French capital. It has only one potable water supply point for some 30 dwellings torrid in summer, freezing cold in winter, which artistsiadpted as studios.
Pablo Picasso lived there from 1902 to 1907 with his partner, French model Fernande Ollivier. Here he painted the iconic masterpiece Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.
In 1908, the Bateau-Lavoir became a veritable artistic hub, attracting a group of highly talented artists such as Georges Braque, Max Jacob, Marie Laurencin, Guillaume Apollinaire, André Salmon, Maurice Raynal, Juan Gris, Fernand Léger, Robert Delaunay, Albert Gleizes, André Lhote, Jean Metzinger, Francis Picabia, Alexander Archipenko, and Paul Gauguin.
It was frequented by Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, André Derain, Raoul Dufy, Utrillo, Gertrude and Leo Stein, Jean Jarry, Jean Cocteau, Raymond Radiguet, Dullin, Ambroise Vollard, Denis, Ardengo Soffici, Kees van Dongen, Juan Gris and the famous sculptor Brâncuși.
“Descriptive sheets report that Picasso lived in several cities, including:
“…Málaga, La Coruña, Madrid and Barcelona.”
In France, he was welcomed in Paris by artists such as:
“…Pere Romeu, Ramon Casas, Hermen Anglada-Camarasa, Frederic Pujulà, Joaquim Mir, Santiago Rusiñol, Carles Casagemas, Ramon Pichot.”
In addition,
“…beginning in 1935, …Picasso faces moves from one house to another (Paris, Boisgeloup, Juan- les-Pins, Le Tremblay sur Mauldre, to name a few).”
The perception of superhuman powers and extraordinary abilities
Gee…one certainly can’t say that he had any problems adapting!
Still reading the files one would say he possessed powers bordering on the human ;
“In only 35 days, summoning all the resources of his prodigious literary, pictorial, and religious erudition, he elaborates and prepares an immense tragic work,” again, “the invisible artist becomes donor, the pariah becomes patron, the renegade becomes benefactor, the excluded becomes tutelary deity.”
Not only that, Picasso was also a
“skillful political strategist,” and an “artist-mercury under assault, a tutelary deity in spite of himself.”
finally
“a stranger filed in the Parisian labyrinth ” until he became “a kind of political persecuted.”
In short, a kind of super-man persecuted by the System without spot or fear; but was he really like that?
Judging again and again from the information provided to us by the descriptive sheets, many doubts arise.
In fact, from the economic point of view, despite all the anguish, already
“In 1908, Picasso will sell André Level Famille de Saltimbanques, and Level will become a kind of stainless shield that will protect Picasso from the anguish of the French public administration.”
Later
“In June 1930, in order to keep going..Picasso buys an eighteenth-century chateau in Normandy.”
so that
“While xenophobia rages, …this new “geographical solution” guarantees him autonomy and security.”
Picasso’s economic life and properties
In 1932 a police report believes:
“…that Picasso has considerable substance. He pays 70,000 francs rent for the apartment on rue La Boétie and has four servants ”
until in 1946
“Romuald Dor de la Souchère, the superintendent of the Grimaldi chateau in Antibes welcomes Picasso as his artistic residence, providing him with a large studio on the second floor, the huge space he had always dreamed of.
“The large estate is his first territorial conquest, a kind of small principality (complete with luxury car, chauffeur and pedigree dog).”
In short, judging from these files, it doesn’t exactly sound like the hardscrabble life of a political persecutor.
Picasso’s personality and its relationship with the system
And also about his personality again from the exhibition description sheets we are informed that:
“When he is informed that de Gaulle wishes to confer on him French citizenship and the Legion of Honor, Picasso refuses.”
and that:
“When the imposing <Hommage à Picasso> exhibition is organized in Paris thanks to André Malraux, Picasso does not go to see it.”
and again:
“It has been said that, in those years, Picasso betrayed himself, renouncing aesthetic research and his former friends.”
Criticisms and contradictions in the exhibition narrative
So what conclusions to draw? I would say that the initial thesis of the exhibition Picasso the foreinger was self-contradictory, resulting in a confusing ending to say the least.
Conclusions and final thoughts
Picasso’s artistic value
In short, to conclude, I would leave the word to the one who first sensed Picasso’s immense artistic talent Gertrude Stein who writes to a friend as follows:
“I have purchased two works by a young Spaniard, a certain Picasso, whom I consider a genius of inestimable value.”
The literary art salon of the Stein family
Between 1902 and 1905, the American collector Leo Stein and his sister Gertrude settled at 27 Rue de Fleurus in Paris, and with them also their brother Michael and sister-in-law Sarah.Leo and Gertrude’s art-literary salon was located in the interstices of Parisian society, as it was frequented mainly by foreign artists and collectors.
The conclusion: genius or complex man?
There, precisely, “a genius of inestimable value” is not necessarily a man of inestimable value.
We know the testimonies of many of those who shared life with him, and how many of them ended up committing suicide.
It is always risky to venture into the private lives of great geniuses.
So let us celebrate the unparalleled artistic genius of Picasso, who first perceived like a shaman the internal decomposition of modern man by bringing it back on canvas, but let us leave the man alone.
Picasso the Stranger, the exhibition organized by Fondazione Roma in collaboration with Marsilio Arte, is open at Palazzo Cipolla until June 29, 2025.
Special thanks to M.me Cécile Debray, president of the Musée national Picasso-Paris, where I spent good times, during my long stay in Paris; and to M.me Cohen-Solal, historian and essayist.