A Foreigner Called Picasso at Gagosian Gallery

“Self Portrait,” 1901. Oil on cardboard mounted on wood, 20 1/4 × 12 1/2 inches (51.4 × 31.8 cm). Museum of Modern Art, New York, Mrs. John Hay Whitney Bequest © 2023 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Photo: © Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, New York. (Courtesy: Gagosian).

Gagosian Gallery in New York’s Chelsea presents an exhibition entitled A Foreigner Called Picasso. The exhibition, curated by Annie Cohen-Solal, a writer, historian, cultural diplomat, and public intellectual, together with art historian Vérane Tasseau, is presented in association with the Musée National Picasso–Paris and the Palais de la Porte Dorée–Musée National de l’histoire de l’immigration, Paris.

A Foreigner Called Picasso includes works from the entire time the artist spent in France, i.e., from 1900-1973, which is to say, most of the artist’s life. Based on Cohen-Solal’s award-winning book, “Un étranger nommé Picasso” (Fayard, 2021; Gallimard, 2023), published in English as “Picasso the Foreigner” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023), and in Spanish as “Un Extranjero Llamado Picasso” (Paidós, 2023), the show also situates the artist’s prolific output in contrast with the way he was seen in Paris as an unwanted outsider.

When the Spanish artist was 19 years old, he immigrated to Paris. Relatively unknown in the city that was considered to be the center of the art world, he later made France his permanent home. While creating a name for himself as an illustrious artist, he also faced great scrutiny as a foreigner. He was, in fact, stigmatized as an anarchist during a time when a wave of nationalism consumed the country. He was constantly being monitored by the authorities for the entirety of his time in France and, at times, feared for his life. Hundreds of his Cubist pieces were seized by the French police, and French institutions denied exhibition of his works repeatedly.

WHAT: A Foreigner Called Picasso

WHEN: November 10, 2023–February 10, 2024

WHERE: Gagosian Gallery, West 21st Street, New York

“Seated Harlequin,” 1901. Oil on canvas, lined and mounted to pressed cork, 33 3/4 × 24 1/8 inches (85.7 × 61.3 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Mr. and Mrs. John L. Loeb Gift, 1960. © 2023 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: © Metropolitan Museum of Art/Licensed by Art Resource, New York. (Courtesy: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and Gagosian).

While he remained under watchful eyes in Paris, by the 1930s, he achieved great acclaim and fame for his paintings throughout the rest of the world. At the time, the director of MoMA, Alfred Barr, said of Picasso, “so fecund and versatile a genius” that no retrospective “can lay claims to completeness [. . .] even with more than 300 works.” When his cubist piece, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907), joined the museum’s permanent collection, Barr added, “There are few works of art in which the arrogance of genius presents itself with such power.”

Picasso, surrounded by uncertainty and fascism, seized this time to create some of his most important works, including “Guernica,” which is considered one of the most famous works of Modern art. The work’s incredible artistic prowess was used to raise funds for Spanish Republicans. Always an outsider, it’s almost as if the artist used this French notion of him as a foreigner to fuel his fire and spur his creativity. He was, in fact, a very successful, affluent, genius French foreigner.

The exhibition includes self-portraits lent by the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, as well as Cubist and Surrealist masterpieces from the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel. “Head of Fernande,” his iconic sculpture, will be displayed, as will “Man with a Lamb.” A Foreigner Called Picasso will also include “Seated Harlequin,” on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The show will be accompanied by an illustrated catalog with essays by the curators Annie Cohen-Solal and Vérane Tasseau and contributions from notable Picasso experts, social scientists, and intellectuals at large.

Cohen-Solal notes, “It seems that everything has been written about Picasso. No other body of work has provoked as much passion, debate, and controversy. But how many know that his sole application for French naturalization was denied in 1940?”

Picasso l’étranger (Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration, in partnership with the Musée National Picasso–Paris, 2021–22), on which this exhibit is based, was awarded the 2022 Prix Historia for best historical exhibition in France. The exhibition is organized as part of Picasso Celebration 1973–2023: 50 exhibitions and events to celebrate Picasso, a transnational program taking place in cultural institutions across Europe and North America to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Picasso’s death.

While his time in France was mired in scandal and rejection, the country played a pivotal role in shaping the artist and his work. France, whether good or bad for the artist, defines his legacy. Picasso can be credited greatly for contributions to the French art world and eventually found favor with France. During World War II, he was finally asked by the country’s government to donate works to major institutions, such as the Musée National d’Art Moderne.