Picasso l'Étranger: Exhibition Reveals Artist's Troubled Relationship with France

The Musée de l'Histoire de l'Immigration in Paris presents "Picasso l'Étranger," an exhibition drawing on historian Annie Cohen-Solal's research and her book "Un étranger nommé Picasso." It explores the paradox of Pablo Picasso, who arrived in Paris in 1900 speaking no French, was placed under police surveillance from 1901 as a suspected anarchist, and had his French naturalization request denied in 1940 despite living in France for 40 years. The show features drawings, sculptures, tapestries, and archival documents across five rooms, tracing his trajectory from Montmartre's Catalan colony through his Blue and Rose periods, his friendship with Max Jacob, Apollinaire, and Gertrude Stein, and the invention of Cubism with Braque. It highlights how Picasso's status as a foreigner fueled his creativity, but also led to xenophobic treatment: police files labeled him an anarchist, leftist, and avant-garde artist; his naturalization was refused because he stayed with an anarchist, married a Russian, worked for a Jewish German art dealer, and promised his collection to communist Russia. After joining the Communist Party in 1944, he was finally granted French nationality in 1958 at age 77, but he refused it. The exhibition also reflects on France's contemporary relationship with immigration and will inform the museum's new permanent display from autumn 2022.