YOUNG PICASSO IN PARIS
Part of the Picasso Celebration 1973–2023, the Exhibition Will Feature Le Moulin de la Galette
Young Picasso in Paris, a small exhibition featuring ten paintings and works on paper created during Pablo Picasso’s first visit to the French city, will be on display at the Guggenheim Museum.
These paintings, which were produced over the course of a crucial year, are representative of a time of creative experimentation and display his developing skill of character study.
Exhibition: Young Picasso in Paris
Venue: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue, New York
Location: Tower Gallery 2
Date: May 12–August 6, 2023
Picasso arrives in Paris
Picasso (Málaga, Spain, 1881–Mougins, France, 1973) travelled from Barcelona to Paris in the fall of 1900, just as the Universal Exhibition was coming to a close and his artwork was on display in the Spanish pavilion. The 19-year-old Spaniard was mesmerised by the ville lumière, or “city of lights,” and was finally transformed by it. Over the course of his original two-month stay, his return in May of the following year, and through the end of 1901, he took in everything Paris had to offer. Picasso frequented the boisterous nightclubs, fantastic dance halls, bohemian cafés, and art galleries in the Montmartre area on a hill. These social gathering places and the different kinds of individuals that attended them immediately emerged as a major source of inspiration.
About the Exhibition
Young Picasso in Paris will feature a pivotal piece from the Guggenheim collection, Le Moulin de la Galette (about November 1900), on the occasion of the artist’s death’s fiftieth anniversary. Le Moulin de la Galette, one of the artist’s earliest works completed in Paris and one of the first he sold, is also the focus of a major conservation investigation and treatment project that will be disclosed in conjunction with the show.
Avant-gardists including Ramon Casas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Vincent van Gogh had also painted the renowned dance hall, which was previously a mill producing a brown bread, or galette. Picasso’s rendition features a colourful and expressive frieze of several people interacting beneath the dance hall’s overhead lights.
Picasso’s picture foreshadows the social exclusion of the working classes that he brought into closer foreground with his later Blue Period, among other noteworthy aspects. It also depicts the gender fluidity existent in fin-de-siècle Paris (1901–04). Undoubtedly, Picasso’s close friend Carles Casagemas’ tragic demise in Paris in February 1901 had an impact on both his artistic and personal development. All in all, Picasso made a lasting impression during his time in Paris and chose to move there in 1904.
About the Picasso Celebration 1973–2023
Pablo Picasso, a Spanish artist, passed away on April 8, 2023, and the year 2023 will be marked by celebrations of his life, work, and creative legacy in France, Spain, and other countries. The governments of France and Spain wanted to commemorate this international occasion by forming a binational commission that would unite their respective diplomatic and cultural organisations. A historiographical investigation of Picasso’s work is addressed through fifty exhibitions and events that will take place at famous cultural institutions in Europe and North America as part of the Picasso Celebration 1973–2023.
Young Picasso in Paris
Megan Fontanella, the curator of Modern Art and Provenance, organised this exhibit. Picasso’s Le Moulin de la Galette is undergoing conservation research under the direction of Julie Barten, Senior Painting Conservator and Associate Director of Conservation Affairs. The Picasso Celebration 1973–2023 programme, which was put together with the help of the Musée national Picasso in Paris, includes this exhibition. In particular, during a significant international symposium in the autumn of 2023, which also happens to be timed with the opening of the Center for Picasso Studies in Paris, the commemoration, which is accompanied by official celebrations in France and Spain, will allow us to assess the research and interpretations of the artist’s work. This outstanding event has the backing of the National Picasso Museum in Paris and the Spanish National Commission for the Commemoration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of Pablo Picasso’s Death.
For more information, visit https://www.guggenheim.org/
