Monaco Celebrates Picasso

This summer the Grimaldi Forum Monaco is featuring "Monaco celebrates Picasso", a major event marking the 40th anniversary of the death of this world renowned artist. With this exhibition which kicked off on Friday 12th July the Grimaldi Forum offers an original insight into Picasso's artistic production, showing not only the close links he had with the Côte d'Azur, but also presenting an exceptional selection of major works from a remarkable private collection. The exhibition is divided into two thematic parts which include 160 works.

AN EXHIBITION, TWO THEMATIC COLLECTIONS

1. Picasso Côte d'Azur

"Picasso Côte d'Azur" transports the exhibition visitors to Antibes - Juan-les-Pins, Golfe Juan, Mougins and Cannes, places that appealed so much to Pablo Picasso, who spent many summers there between 1920 and 1946, where the Mediterranean light, the sea and the coast were direct sources of inspiration for him. The selection of paintings and drawings, all executed during these periods, aims to show how Picasso's experiences and his reactions to his summer environment during these years is reflected in his work. Between 1920 and 1939, Picasso made at least fifteen visits to the French Riviera, including a short stay in Monte-Carlo during the spring of 1925 when he and his wife, the ex-dancer Olga Khokhlova were invited by Serge Diaghilev to attend a new production by the Ballets Russes.They were escorted on the train journey from Paris by Boris Kochno, who assisted Diaghilev in all manner of ballet arrangements. They stayed at the Hôtel de Paris until mid-May. Until 1933, the Picasso family stayed, for the most part, around Juan-les-Pins, in local rented villas. Finally, as epilogue to this journey illustrating the 1920s and 1930s, the public will be able to continue their visit at the Musée Picasso in Antibes, a partner of the exhibition, which houses the most important collection of the artist's works executed while he was on the Riviera, before he left Paris definitively to set up his studio first in Cannes, then at Mougins.

Bringing together fifty works from prestigious institutions such as The Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum New York, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Musée national d'art moderne at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, as well as many loans of works—rarely shown— from the Picasso estate and French and international private collections, this thematic section provides a comprehensive view of Picasso's responses to the place and his private concerns during these years.

2. Picasso in the Nahmad Collection

"Picasso in the Nahmad collection" highlights masterpieces by the artist that form a major share of a private collection, unique in the world for its depth and quality, which has been assembled by Ezra and David Nahmad over the past half century. In Monaco the 101 masterpieces presented to the public for the first time provide visitors with a retrospective of the artist's work through a careful selection of works of rare quality, equal to the spirit which animates this family of collectors.

The Grimaldi Forum - One place, many exhibitions

Poised between sea and sky, the Grimaldi Forum Monaco is an unparalleled venue providing a cultural programme focused on three major themes: exhibitions, music and dance. Every summer the Grimaldi Forum Monaco puts on a major thematic exhibition devoted to a leading arts movement, a heritage or civilisation topic or indeed any subject that expresses the revitalisation of creation. The Grimaldi Forum Monaco works with the world's greatest cultural institutions - museums, foundations, and galleries and has had the privilege of obtaining significant loans of important works of art. But the Grimaldi Forum Monaco has a dual function and it is that which gives it its particularity vocation: it is also a congress and trade show centre hosting some 100 corporate events each year (congresses, trade fairs, conventions etc). The Grimaldi Forum Monaco offers 35,000m² of exhibition and function space.

The partners of the exhibition are the Compagnie Monegasque de Banque, D'Amico and Novotel Monte-Carlo.

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

Venue: Espace Ravel of the Grimaldi Forum Monaco
10, avenue Princesse Grace - 98000 Monaco
Website: www.grimaldiforum.com
Dates: from July 12 to September 15, 2013
Hours: Open every day from 10 am to 8 pm. Thursday evenings until 10 pm.
Entrance fee: Full price 10 €. Reduced price: Groups (+ 10 people) = 8 €. Students (-25 years on presentation of card) = 8 €. FREE for those under eighteen.
Ticket office Grimaldi Forum, Telephone: +377 99 99 3000, Fax: +377 99 99 3001
E-mail: ticket@grimaldiforum.mc and at FNAC stores