The National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin has launched a groundbreaking exhibition featuring key works by Pablo Picasso, created in partnership with the prestigious Musée Picasso in Paris. The exhibition, titled "Picasso: From the Studio," offers visitors an unprecedented journey through the Spanish master's career by exploring the various workspaces where he created his revolutionary art.
Born in Málaga, southern Spain, in 1881, Picasso famously described his art-making as "just another way of keeping a diary." He moved to France at age 19, beginning his artistic journey in bare attic rooms in Paris that gradually evolved into increasingly grand spaces as his success grew. Throughout his prolific career, which spanned over seven decades until his death in 1973 at age 91, Picasso documented his colorful and often tumultuous life through an extraordinary outpouring of paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, and ceramics.
The sheer scale of Picasso's productivity was staggering. When he died at his private Mas Notre-Dame de Vie estate in Mougins, France, it was discovered that he had left behind 45,000 unsold artworks in his studios. Since he died without a will, his descendants settled death duties by donating a substantial portion of this collection to the French state, much of which now resides in the Musée Picasso in Paris.
According to Janet McLean, who co-curated the Dublin exhibition with the Musée Picasso's Joanne Snrech, Picasso worked in 105 different spaces throughout his career. "They weren't all studios, of course; he sometimes worked in cafés or hotels, or in friends' houses," McLean explains. "Obviously, we couldn't cover all of those in one exhibition, so what we've done is focus on several key spaces beginning with those he worked in Paris, and then on the Riviera, where he spent a lot of time after the First World War."
The exhibition highlights several pivotal locations in Picasso's artistic journey. Among the featured works are pieces created at the Château de Boisgeloup in Normandy, which Picasso purchased in the 1930s. Even more significantly, the exhibition includes work from his famous studio on Rue Grands Augustins near Notre Dame in Paris, discovered for him by photographer and painter Dora Maar in 1936. This studio holds particular historical importance as the location where Picasso painted his masterpiece "Guernica" in 1937.
"Guernica," completed in 1937, stands as one of Picasso's greatest achievements—a monumental grey, black, and white painting commemorating the bombing of the Basque town by German Nazi and Italian Fascist aircraft during the Spanish Civil War. First exhibited at the Paris International Exposition that same year, the work later toured internationally and is now permanently housed in the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid.
Picasso remained in Paris throughout the Nazi occupation during World War II, only moving to southern France after the liberation. He settled first in Vallauris on the Côte d'Azur, then at Villa La Californie in Cannes, and finally at Mougins for the last twelve years of his life. Each location brought new artistic innovations and personal revelations that are reflected in his work.
The exhibition also chronicles the complex web of Picasso's personal relationships, which profoundly influenced his art. In 1918, he married Russian ballet dancer Olga Khokhlova, with whom he had his first son, Paulo. However, fidelity was never Picasso's strength. At age 38, he began an affair with 17-year-old Marie-Thérèse Walter, who eventually bore him a daughter, Maya. The exhibition features a 1937 portrait of Marie-Thérèse, created during the same period as "Guernica."
"Picasso was obsessed with Marie-Thérèse," McLean notes. "He painted her over and over again. The portrait we have in the exhibition also dates to 1937, not long after the start of the Spanish Civil War, which came as a shock and was totally abhorrent to Picasso. It's a sweet and very loving portrait, and very different from 'Guernica' and the other paintings he made that year. He only ever had good things to say about Marie-Thérèse. He moved on eventually, but they were always very close. In later years, she wrote to him every day."
Picasso's relationship with Dora Maar, which began in 1936, tells a different story through his portraiture. "At the beginning of a relationship, Picasso threw everything at it. The portraits would be very beautiful. But Dora herself said, 'Picasso never painted portraits of me, they're portraits of Picasso. It's all about him and how he's feeling,'" McLean explains. The exhibition features "Bust of a Woman with a Blue Hat" from 1944, painted toward the end of their relationship during the Nazi occupation of Paris.
"Dora's features are really heightened, her eyebrows are kind of off-kilter, and she's gripping the chair. It's quite an anxious portrait," McLean observes. "Picasso painted this portrait well into the occupation of Paris, and like a lot of paintings he made at that time, there's a sense of claustrophobia. People are cornered, essentially. You can sense that kind of tension. It's a very tight painting, but I don't think it does Dora justice, because she was amazing. But it captures a moment, with everything that was happening around them."
While Picasso is best known as a painter, the exhibition also showcases his work in other media. At Vallauris, he learned ceramics at a local workshop, producing thousands of clay pieces, including the sculpture "Head of a Woman" from 1953. "Picasso was looking at early Spanish ceramics and Etruscan art around that time. 'Head of a Woman' looks so simple—the lines Picasso drew on the head are almost cartoonish—but it's a stunning piece of work," McLean explains. "Picasso must have thought so too. When he moved on to La Californie in Cannes, he made a series of drawings and paintings of his studio, and it's always there. You can see it in film footage and photographs from that time as well."
By 1944, Picasso had become involved with Françoise Gilot, who bore him his two youngest children, Claude and Paloma. The exhibition includes the painting "Claude Drawing, Françoise and Paloma," completed ten years later, shortly after Picasso left Gilot for his final partner, Jacqueline Roque. "Françoise was an artist too," McLean notes. "In a lot of photographs from that time, you see her on the floor, drawing with the children. Picasso was very particular about his studios. He was a real hoarder, and he didn't like people interfering with his stuff. But he let the children make things and draw all around him, he was very good like that."
The aftermath of Picasso's relationships often proved tragic. Long after their breakup, Gilot wrote a book about Picasso that angered him so greatly he cut off all contact with her and their children. After his death, they had to go to court to secure any share of his estate. Two of his partners—Walter and Roque—were so affected by his death that they committed suicide.
Despite the controversies surrounding his personal life, Picasso's status as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century remains unassailable. McLean attributes his enduring success to his constant evolution and willingness to experiment. "In his fifties, at an age when most people are slowing down, he started making big sculptures. And he always collaborated, with printmakers, metalworkers, foundries, and ceramic studios. He was always learning, and always trying new things, right up to the end."
"Picasso: From the Studio" runs at the National Gallery of Ireland until February 22, 2026, offering art enthusiasts a rare opportunity to experience masterworks that chronicle not just the evolution of modern art, but the intimate spaces where artistic genius flourished.
