1932 was a pivotal year for Pablo Picasso, one of the most influential and important artists of the first half of the 20th century. Over the course of this year, the legendary artist created some of his finest and pioneering works, including the virtuoso masterpiece The Dream and his colour-saturated portraits and seminal ink drawings of the Crucifixion.

Pablo Picasso. The Dream. 1932.

Pablo Picasso. Self-portrait. 1932.

Pablo Picasso. The Crucifixion. 1932

Tate Modern unveiled on 8 March its first solo exhibition of Pablo Picasso featuring works created in the artist’s ‘year of wonders’. The show presents more than 100 outstanding paintings, sculptures and works on paper, demonstrating his prolific and restlessly inventive character, as well as to reveal the artist in his full complexity and richness.

Photograph of Pablo Picasso in 1932, by Cecil Beaton.

Pablo Picasso. Bust of a Woman. 1932.

The EY Exhibition: Picasso 1932 – Love, Fame, Tragedy takes visitors on a month-by-month journey through 1932, an extraordinary year for Picasso. Regarding his career, it was a year in which his paintings reached a new level of sensuality and his celebrity status was further cemented. In his personal life, Picasso, in his fifties, was married to his wife Olga Khokhlova, with whom they have a 11-year old son, Paulo. At the same time, he was having a passionate love affair with his mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter, 28 years his junior.

Marie-Thérèse Walter

Pablo Picasso. The Mirror. 1932.

Pablo Picasso. Nude, Green Leaves and Bust. 1932.

Realist portraits of Olga and Paulo revealed Picasso’s feelings of pride and tenderness for his family, while his sexually charged new paintings unveiled for the first time the presence of the secret woman in his life.

Pablo Picasso. Portrait of Olga in an Armchair. 1932.

Pablo Picasso. Nude in a Black Armchair. 1932.

Pablo Picasso. Nude Woman in a Red Armchair. 1932.

The exhibition offers a rare glimpse of the tribulations of Picasso’s personal life with an unprecedented range of loans from collection around the world, including works in private hands which have not been displayed in the public for a long time.

Pablo Picasso’s Girl Before A Mirror (1932) is on loan from the collection of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMa).

Other highlights of the exhibition

Pablo Picasso. Reclining Nude. 1932.

Pablo Picasso. Seated Woman in a Red Armchair. 1932.

Pablo Picasso. Woman on the Beach. 1932.

The EY Exhibition: Picasso 1932 – Love, Fame, Tragedy
Dates: 2018/3/8 - 9/9
Venue: Eyal Ofer Galleries, Tate Modern
Address: Bankside; London, SE1; United Kingdom
Admission:
Adult｜£22
Concession｜£20
Under 12s｜Free

Tate Modern
Opening hours:
Sunday to Thursday｜ 10am - 6pm
Friday to Saturday｜10am - 10pm