Picasso spent most of his life in France, but it took him over forty years to feel like he needed to become naturalised (which incidentally helped his work to to be acquired by the nation’s museums).

This new exhibition at the Museum of the History of Immigration (an absolutely gorgeous building with a massive basement aquarium!) uses the artist’s citizenship request of 1940 as a starting point (because it was refused) and looks at how his status as a ‘foreigner’ influence and informed his work.

Cultural difference are a strong motor for creation, and Picasso is proof. His creative life would have been very different if ha had been accepted and naturalised earlier in life.

But by mistake, Picasso was put on police file in 1901 as being an ‘anarchist to watch’, and a certain suspicion followed him for decades after, encouraged by his left-leaning ideas and wild forms of art.

Up until 1947, although Picasso was already famous around the world, only two French institutions owned his paintings.

The exhibition follows the artist’s life in Paris at the very beginning of the 20th century, shows how he was at the head of the avant-garde movement until the beginning of the First World War, then gives examples of the diversity in his work between the tow Wars.

Next, the exhibitions shows the threats that the artist lived under druing the Second World War, then how he built up his reputation afterwards – it was only in 1978, with his new status as ‘privileged resident’ (following his donation of ten paintings to French collections) that French museums started to fully appreciate his art.

At each of these stages, being a foreigner influenced not only Picasso’s life, but also his approach and his work. This exhibition explores an interesting and unusual subject, and the venue is worth the visit alone!

Related to the exhibition, you may be interested by:

— guided visits every Saturday in November at 11am, and Saturdays from December to February at 2.30pm

— 20-minute ‘micro-visites’ at the weekend between 2 and 6pm

— workshops for kids

— a Picasso Day Sunday 5th December from 2-8pm…

A catalogue of the exhibition is also available (288 pages, 37€ here at amazon.fr).

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The exhibition Picasso l’étranger est is at the Museum of the History of Immigration (here) until 13th February 2022

Open Tuesday-Friday from 10am-5.30pm and weekends from 10am-7pm. Late night opening until 9pm on Wednesdays and the first Sunday of the month

Admission: 8€ / 5€. Online booking here

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