Picasso's Beach Bathers: A Jewel Exhibition at Peggy Guggenheim Collection

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice presents "Picasso. Sulla spiaggia" (Picasso. On the Beach), a focused exhibition examining Pablo Picasso's bather motif during a pivotal week in February 1937. Curated by Luca Massimo Barbero, the show centers on three oil paintings created within nine days: "Donna seduta sulla spiaggia" (February 10, from Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon), "Sulla spiaggia" (February 12, from the Peggy Guggenheim Collection), and "Grande bagnante con libro" (February 18, from Musée national Picasso, Paris). These works are surrounded by preparatory drawings that trace Picasso's creative process amid personal turmoil—his separation from Olga Khokhlova and relationships with Marie-Thérèse Walter and Dora Maar—and the looming shadow of the Spanish Civil War. The exhibition is part of the international Picasso Méditerranée cycle and is installed in the Project Rooms recently inaugurated with a Rita Kernn-Larsen monographic show. The 1937 bather series marks a turning point where Picasso's exploration of abstraction, drawing, painting, and sculpture coalesce, balancing summer nostalgia with premonitions of conflict. The exhibition opened in August 2017, coinciding with Peggy Guggenheim's birth anniversary.