Many of the pieces produced by Pablo Picasso throughout his life feature women as their central figure, women who did not merely pose for him, but rather through the eyes of the master artist took on an active role in his creative process, acquiring the status of muse, sources of inspiration for a man who was both their painter and their lover.

Picasso. Muses and Models brings together a total of 46 paintings, 14 drawings and 6 sculptures, reflecting on the powerful presence of women in Picasso’s plastic works. Portraits and nudes are the main themes represented in the works on display, which date from the early 20th century, when his muse was Fernande Olivier, to the latter years of his life, which he spent with Jacqueline Roque.

The exhibition features includes a major selection of works from this last period, since the pieces, drawn from various public and private collections, originally belonged to the collection formerly owned by Jacqueline herself. It is a group of highly personal works, voluntarily kept by the artist within his home environment, lending them a domestic quality which heightens the sensation of proximity to a space closely connected with the intimate private life of Pablo Picasso.

From Fernande Olivier to Jacqueline Roque
The exhibition brings visitors into contact with the artistic and private universe of Picasso. Here, his companion at the beginning of the century, Fernande Olivier, is represented in bronze with harsh features at odds with the youthful aspect of the model. After Fernande, Eva Gouel was to be the woman who would inspire the Cubist era, as represented in Woman Seated on an Armchair (1913).

For almost a decade, the Russian dancer Olga Kokhlova, mother of Pablo’s son Paul, took centre stage in Picasso’s work. Olga is also present, in various guises, in the permanent collection, variously depicted as a bourgeois lady or statuesque earth mother.

However, it was to be Picasso’s new lover, Marie-Thérèse Walter, who would be depicted in probably the most diverse range of forms: from intimate portraits of a bashful young woman with dreamy eyes to the inaccessible sensuality of an almost mythical being.

Quite the opposite occurs with Dora Maar, one of the leading surrealist photographers of her time, and the painter’s lover in the 1930s. It was she who photographed Picasso while he was painting Guernica (1937), and hers was the anguished face depicted in the initial studies for the great work, one of which is included in the exhibition: Crying Woman (1937).

The works inspired by his last companion, Jacqueline Roque, feature most heavily in the exhibition, and are the most varied in terms of subject matter and style. At times delicately realistic, and at others abstracted in the extreme, the image which Picasso portrays of his second wife is full of subtle shades. These various guises reveal an almost playful intent, in tune with the painter’s love for the theatrical: in solid black, in a childlike posture sitting cross-legged on a rocking chair, dressed in Turkish or Spanish fashion, nude, playing with her dog, or simply posing seated, like a goddess with an endless neck.

Although painting occupies most of Picasso. Muses and Models, there are also drawings produced using different media (charcoal, ink and Conté pencil), collages, and sculptures in bronze and sheet metal.