Picasso the Foreigner: An Artist in France, 1900-1973 [Paperback]

ANew York Times Book ReviewEditors Choice

Absorbing [and] astute . . . Cohen-Solal captures a facet of Picassos character long overlooked. Hamilton Cain,The Wall Street Journal

A beguiling read, as ingenious as it is ambitious . . . See Picasso and Paris shimmering with new light. Mark Braude, author ofKiki Man Ray: Art, Love, and Rivalry in 1920s Paris

Born from her probing inquiry into Picassos odyssey in France, which inspired a museum exhibition of the same name, historianAnnie-Cohen SolalsPicasso the Foreignerpresents a bold new understanding of the artists career and his relationship with the country he called home.

Winner of the 2021 Prix Femina Essai

Before Picasso became Picassothe iconic artist now celebrated as one of Frances leading figureshe was constantly surveilled by the French police. Amid political tensions in the spring of 1901, he was flagged as an anarchist by the security servicesthe first of many entries in an extensive case file. Though he soon emerged as the leader of the cubist avant-garde, and became increasingly wealthy as his reputation grew worldwide, Picassos art was largely excluded from public collections in France for the next four decades. The genius who conceivedGuernicain 1937 as a visceral statement against fascism was even denied French citizenship three years later, on the eve of the Nazi occupation. In a country where the police and the conservative Acad?mie des Beaux-Arts represented two major pillars of the establishment at the time, Picasso faced a triple stigmaas a foreigner, a political radical, and an avant-garde artist.

Picasso the Foreignerapproaches the artists career and art from an entirely new angle, making extensive use of fascinating and long-overlooked archival sources. In this groundbreaking narrative, Picasso emerges as an artist ahead of his time not only aesthetil“