April 8, 2023 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Spanish artist Pablo Picasso and thus the year will represent a celebration of his work and his artistic legacy in France, Spain and internationally. For this occasion, the French and Spanish governments have organized a large-scale transnational event through a bi-national commission, bringing together the cultural and diplomatic administrations of both countries.
Supported by renowned cultural institutions in Europe and the United States, the program of the Picasso Celebration 1973-2023 will be structured around some fifty exhibitions and events that, as a whole, trace a historiographical approach to Picasso’s work.
In Europe and the United States, the exhibitions and associated programs of the Picasso Celebration 1973-2023 will therefore highlight the artist’s influence throughout the 20th century and his continued reference for artists of the 21st century through a variety of approaches. 42 exhibitions are currently planned. 16 in Spain; 12 in France; 2 in Germany; 2 in Switzerland; 1 in Monaco; 1 in romania; 1 in Belgium, and we will highlight below the 7 exhibitions scheduled for here in the USA.
Below, we list where the celebratory events will be held in the New York area from May into January, 2024. As we get closer to the dates for each event, more information will be provided.
Young Picasso in Paris at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum from May 12, 2023
This focus exhibition is centered on Pablo Picasso’s Le Moulin de la Galette (ca. November 1900). A cornerstone of the Guggenheim’s early modern collection, this painting is also one of the most important from the artist’s initial stay in Paris. An assembling of works executed over the next year explores this time of artistic and personal transformation and further demonstrates Picasso’s fascination with the spectacle and the vitality of a fin-de-siècle Paris, as well as his shrewd exercises in character study.
Title to be Confirm at Brooklyn Museum from June 2, 2023 to September 24, 2023
This exhibition, a reevaluation of Picasso’s practice and reception through a feminist lens, will be a collaborative curatorial project with Hannah Gadsby, Emmy and Peabody Award- winning Australian comedian, writer, and mild-mannered antagonist, along with Lisa Small, Senior Curator, European Art and Catherine Morris, Senior Curator, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. The project will engage some of the compelling questions young, diverse museum audiences increasingly raise about the interconnected issues of misogyny, masculinity, creativity, and “genius,” particularly around a complex, mythologized figure like Picasso.
Picasso’s Paintings for Hamilton Easter Field at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from September 12, 2023 to January 14, 2024
This exhibition will present a fascinating but little-known chapter of cubism: Pablo Picasso’s commission by American art collector, painter, and critic, Hamilton Easter Field for a decorative ensemble intended for the library of his Brooklyn townhouse. The eight extant canvas panels – assembled together for the first time – with related works on paper and archival material will show how the commission, while unrealized, served as a catalyst for Picasso’s exploration of cubist form, as he worked, abandoned, and then reworked the panels. The exhibition will provide a unique opportunity not only to study this noteworthy project, but also an occasion to consider cubism in relation to decorative and architectural space.
Picasso and La Celestina explores the relationship between the artist and one of the most famous seminal novels in Spanish Literature. This dossier-exhibition will focus on a series of etchings executed by Picasso at the end of his life (March-October 1968) in dialogue with the unique copy of the first edition of Fernando de Rojas’ Comedia de Calisto y Melibea ([Burgos, 1499?]), better known as La Celestina. Beyond this particular theme, the show will address is- sues about Pablo Picasso’s relationship to literature, Spanish tradition, love and women. It will also raise timely questions about artists -or any person- in exile: where/what is home?; where do I belong?
Additional programs (concert – panel discussions – workshops) will accompany the exhibition
Pablo Picasso was born in Malaga on October 25, 1881 and died in the French town of Mougins on April 8, 1973. Picasso is one of the most important figures of modern art. His expressive, free and multiform style continues to influence contemporary art and debate today. The Picasso Celebration 1973-2023 aims to highlight the career of an essentially European artist who, with a deep knowledge of the heritage and principles of tradition, as well as an understanding of both classicism as an ethical value and of modern issues in art, has projected throughout the world universal symbols such as Guernica, today a collective emblem of the defense of human rights.
In addition to highlighting the career of the artist, the commemoration will allow for a review of the state of research and understanding of Picasso’s work, notably with a first seminar at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid at the end of 2022 and then during a major international symposium on December 6-7-8, 2023 at UNESCO in Paris. This symposium will bring together all the partners (museum institutions, research centers, researchers) around the theme of “Picasso in the 21st century: historical and cultural issues”.) Art historians, curators, exhibition commissioners recognized in the Picasso sphere, as well as artists, writers and collectors will be invited to speak.
The year 2023 will also be marked by the opening of the Picasso Study Center at the Musée National Picasso-Paris, in the historic, prestigious and renovated spaces of the Hôtel de Rohan. The museum’s documentation, library and archives will thus be brought together around a research center, a digital portal and a website that will make the Picasso Museum a unique reference center for the artist and the fields related to him. A true place of transmission and sharing with a wide public, it will serve as a privileged framework for scientific exchanges and the work of researchers from around the world.