Picasso & Khokhlova Automatic translate

Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation
State Museum of Fine Arts named after A.S. Pushkin
National Picasso Museum (Paris)
Almina and Bernard Ruiz Picasso Art Support Foundation (FABA) (Madrid)
present an exhibition
Picasso & Khokhlova.

Curators: Emilia Filippo, curator of the National Museum of Picasso (Paris); Joaquim Pissarro, art historian, director of the galleries of Hunter College; Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, co-founder and co-chair of the Almina and Bernard Ruiz-Picasso Art Support Foundation (FABA) (Madrid); Alexey Petukhov, senior researcher at the Department of Art of Europe and America of the XIX – XX centuries, Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin.

The Pushkin Museum to them. A.S. Pushkin, together with the National Picasso Museum in Paris and the Almina and Bernard Ruiz-Picasso Foundation for the Support of Art (FABA) present the Picasso & Khokhlova exhibition. The main character of the exhibition is the first wife of Pablo Picasso, Olga Khokhlova. The love story of a Spanish artist and a Russian dancer will appear before the audience in the artist’s works, photographs, letters and things from the personal archive of the Picasso family. The exhibition will include both famous works and those that have never been shown to the Russian public. The general sponsor of the exhibition was VTB Bank. The project was organized with the support of Mastercard.

For the first time, an exhibition dedicated to Pablo Picasso and Olga Khokhlova was held at the National Picasso Museum in Paris in 2017. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the acquaintance of the artist and his first wife, the museum presented the project “Olga Picasso”, which tells about the period of life spent by the spouses together, as well as the influence of Olga and Russian culture on the master’s work. Today the exhibition takes the Pushkin Museum to them. A.S. Pushkin, known for his large-scale exhibitions of Picasso. The museum funds contain the artist’s works and unique photographs that Olga Khokhlova sent to her relatives in Russia in the 1920s.

The Moscow exhibition "Picasso & Khokhlova" contains more than 200 exhibits - from monumental panels to pieces of furniture, letters and postcards. Most of the paintings and drawings included in the collection of the National Picasso Museum in Paris - the world’s largest center for the study of the artist. Another key participant is the FABA Foundation, whose head is Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, grandson of Pablo Picasso and Olga Khokhlova, for the first time in Russia will show a family collection of unknown works by the master, as well as archival materials found in Olga’s travel chest, where they were stored for many years. A study of the archive made it possible to restore the history of relations between Olga and Pablo and create a unique exhibition project.

The exhibition aims to show the audience the work of Picasso in the context of his personal history. The exposition is based on the development of plots related to Olga and in the artist’s work - from classical portraits and images of motherhood to surreal visions. Each topic is disclosed in one of the eleven sections of the exhibition.

Pablo Picasso and Olga Khokhlova met in 1917 in Rome, while working on the production of the ballet Parade in the framework of Sergei Diaghilev’s Russian Ballets. In 1918, they got married in an Orthodox church in Paris. Olga Khokhlova became the first official wife of the artist and the main model of the new, “classical” period of his work. The avant-garde rhythm of Picasso’s works was pacified by the universal "return to order" in art and life. Picasso’s artistic style changed, his position in society became different: together with Olga they were now secular people, gaining a new social status. Together with peace and silence, Picasso’s art included epic, monumental forms inspired by classical art. This, the most intense stage of relations between Pablo Picasso and Olga Khokhlova, will be presented in the White Hall of the museum. Here you can see portraits of Olga, united by two themes - “Muse and Model” and “Melancholy”. A part of the exhibition entitled “Change of scenery” will tell about secular salons, apartments and castles, where the Picasso family spent time. The sections “Motherhood” and “Paul” will reveal Olga’s home world, which was completely dedicated to her son Paulo, born on February 4, 1921.

In the mid-1920s, Picasso’s attitude towards the family changed. New hobbies in life and in art complicated the relationship of Pablo and Olga. Another was the image of his wife in the works of the artist. This period, which ended with a break, is presented in the thematic sections of the exhibition that complement each other. History of meetings with a new lover - in the "Workshop" and "Bathers"; change of attitude towards Olga - in “Metamorphosis”; secular masks and hidden drama in amateur filming in the “On Screen” section. The ambiguity of relations between Picasso and the women around him was reflected in the plots of Corrid and Crucifixes, where the artist identified himself with the bull victim of the torero, and, finally, in Eros and Thanatos, which contains works united by the theme of the minotaur - the tyrant and the victim, - The main alter ego master in the 1930s. Picasso and Khokhlova finally parted in 1935, remaining, however, officially married until the death of Olga in 1955.

Marina Loshak, Director of the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin:

The exhibition is dedicated to an extremely important period in the life of Pablo Picasso associated with his Russian wife, ballerina Olga Khokhlova. We present our version of the story of their life together, talk about the Russian trace in the biography of the master. Together with the viewer, we will go through different stages of this extremely interesting and dramatic story, which not only internally changed the artist himself, but also had a huge impact on his art.

Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, curator of the exhibition, co-founder and co-chair of the Almina and Bernard Ruiz-Picasso Art Support Fund:

The exhibition will present the result of a long study of archives that Olga Khokhlova (1891–1955), my grandmother on my father’s side, left to me, and which allowed me to highlight the years of her life together with Pablo Picasso. I want to share with you this adventure, which for me was the study of the contents of these archives, and the many details that influenced the work of Picasso throughout his life with Olga.

Alexey Petukhov, curator of the exhibition, senior researcher of the art department of the countries of Europe and America of the XIX – XX centuries:

The exhibition "Picasso & Khokhlova" is read as a novel about life and art. Spectators will be able to mentally get to the performances of Diaghilev ballets, feel the pacified atmosphere of Picasso’s new house and understand the sad silence in it, hear the sounds of children’s games of parents and their son Paulo, feel the pain of breaking the couple, all of the hardships of which Picasso survived in his works.

The exhibition "Picasso & Khokhlova" is dedicated to the XXXVIII International Music Festival of Arts "December evenings of Svyatoslav Richter", which will be held in the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin from November 30 to December 27. Within the framework of the exhibition, an educational program will be carried out, included in the Autumn Picasso series, combining three projects - the exhibitions Anatomy of Cubism and Paris Evenings by Baroness Ettingen. Russo, Modigliani, Apollinaire, Survage, Fera ”and“ Picasso & Khokhlova ”; as well as a series of events for people with special needs prepared by the department of inclusive programs of the Pushkin Museum. A.S. Pushkin.

After completion in Moscow, the exhibition will be held at the Picasso Museum in Malaga (from February 25 to June 2, 2019) and at the Cairo Forum Cultural Center in Madrid (from June 18 to September 22, 2019).