PICASSO THE FOREIGNER

A portrait of the artist as a lifelong foreigner.

Cohen-Solal, a professor at Bocconi University in Milan and author of Mark Rothko and Leo & His Circle, approaches the artist and his work through the lenses of history and sociology. She shows how Picasso's status as a foreigner during his years of residency in France marked him out for “exclusion [and] stigma.” Her extensive research into French police files shows that Picasso was under constant Paris surveillance, suspected of belonging to an anarchist cult. The author makes explicit the link between the perceived threat of Picasso as an “alien suspect” and the fear of today's migratory caravans traversing Europe. A long survey of Picasso's allies, collectors, and dealers shows how their non-French identities influenced the guarded reception of his art. His “otherness in French society as an “avant-garde artist” made him a target of “waves of xenophobia.” Picasso placed himself in a transnational geography and a worldwide history stretching back to antiquity. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, for example, put into dialogue European and African art, classical and contemporary idioms. This cosmopolitan instinct is what drew him to Paris, a "city of exiles," as a young man, but the mid-20th-century rise of totalitarianism in Europe and the fascist victory in the Spanish Civil War meant that he was constantly under threat. Cohen-Solal makes a strong case that Picasso's expatriate identity largely determined the trajectory of his life and oeuvre. She references specific works and exhibitions, including his masterpiece, Guernica, which signaled his "abrupt shift into political engagement.” His later success and fame transformed him from pariah to patron of the arts. In his later years, he became a “protector-benefactor-advisor” to French provincial museums, choosing the "genuine interest of the workers" over the "blasé corruption of 'rich snobs’ in Paris.” By then, his role as a truly global artist was secure.

A robust, prodigiously researched art history.