Thannhauser CollecFon, GiG, JusFn K. Thannhauser 78.2514.34. Photo: David Heald, Solomon R. Guggenheim FoundaFon, New York © 2023 Estate of Pablo Picasso / ArFsts Rights Society (ARS), New York
The Guggenheim Museum will present Young Picasso in Paris, an intimate exhibition comprising a total of ten paintings and works on paper executed during Pablo Picasso’s introduction to the French capital. Created over the course of one pivotal year, these works exemplify a period of stylistic experimentation and show his burgeoning mastery of character study. Picasso (b. 1881, Málaga, Spain; d. 1973, Mougins, France) arrived in Paris from Barcelona in autumn 1900, during the final weeks of the Universal Exhibition that included his own art in the Spanish pavilion. The ville lumière, or “city of lights,” captivated, and ultimately transformed, the nineteen-year-old Spaniard. He absorbed everything Paris had to offer over his initial two-month stay and during his return the following May through the end of 1901. Picasso patronized not only the art galleries, but also the bohemian cafés, raucous nightclubs, and sensational dance halls in the hilltop neighborhood of Montmartre. These sites of social gathering and the various types of people who frequented them quickly became a primary source of inspiration.