Why Picasso Needed Paris
Jonathan Jones states the obvious, but states it well: ‘Pablo Picasso, the greatest artist of the 20th century, was French. Hold on … don’t comment yet. I am fully aware that Picasso was born in Malaga in southern Spain in 1881, that he started his artistic career in Barcelona and remained proudly Spanish all his life. But the reopening of the Musée Picasso in Paris last autumn confirmed the French capital’s unique claim on this stupendously creative painter, sculptor and poet. His genius is so tangled up with the streets and garrets, palaces and attics of Paris, a city that he first visited in 1900 and whose artistic life he would take to new heights.’
