Picasso, magical paintings at the Musée Picasso - photos

Come and (re)discover Pablo Picasso 's Tableaux Magiques in Paris, during the exhibition devoted to them at the Musée Picasso-Paris from October 1, 2019 to February 23, 2020.

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These paintings are the fruit of Picasso's passion for non-Western art, which he collected. During the 1920s, the painter was in contact with all the Parisian dealers innon-Western art, including Louis Carré, André Level, Pierre Loeb and Charles Ratton. So, alongside 11 works that once belonged to Picasso, the museum offers a view of these productions: the Tableaux Magiques, painted between 1926 and 1930.

The Magic Paint ings seem to have originated in the summer of 1926, when Picasso painted a number of canvases at his villa in Juan-les-Pins. Unfortunately, he decided to take his paintings back to Paris, transporting them on the roof of his car, at which point many of the works were stolen.

These paintings feature mainly portraits, composed of lines and strange monumental volumes, which "seem to be in perpetual metamorphosis". It was Picasso's extraordinary creative imagination that led art critic Christian Zervos to describe these works as "tableaux magiques" in his 1938 magazine Cahiers d'art.

For more than 5 years, the genius would paint numerous works, including a series of seated women bathers (Grande Baigneuse, May 26, 1929), a series of double-headed kiss paintings. Several paintings are entitled Métamorphoses in early exhibitions. The exhibition also features 16 of Picasso's last Magic Paintings, very special in that they were painted on wooden panels taken from a cupboard dismantled because of the painter's poverty at the time.

This interesting series takes us into a special world, somewhere between non-Western art and cubism.

Please note that it's been over 4 years since our last visit, so the place and experience may have changed.