Pablo Picasso

The 1907 Demoiselles is a dated canvas now labelled at https://www.moma.org/collection/works/79766 (opens in a new tab) and taught at https://smarthistory.org/picasso-les-demoiselles-davignon/ (opens in a new tab). The 1912 collage practice is a materials fact at https://www.moma.org/artists/4609 (opens in a new tab) and https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pica/hd_pica.htm (opens in a new tab). Guernica is a 1937 Republic pavilion mural now documented at https://www.museoreinasofia.es/en/collection/artwork/guernica (opens in a new tab) and https://guernica.museoreinasofia.es/en (opens in a new tab). Independent biography: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pablo-Picasso (opens in a new tab). Museums: https://www.museepicassoparis.fr/en (opens in a new tab), https://museupicassobcn.cat/en (opens in a new tab), https://www.museopicassomalaga.org/en (opens in a new tab), https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/pablo-picasso-1767 (opens in a new tab). UNESCO later memory sits at https://www.unesco.org/en (opens in a new tab). The PCF is at https://www.pcf.fr/ (opens in a new tab).

Remaining in occupied Paris from 14 June 1940 is ambiguity, not a maquis file. The October 1944 PCF card, 1948 peace-congress appearances, the 1950 Stalin-era peace prize, and the March 1953 Stalin portrait in Les Lettres françaises are communist cultural diplomacy, with the 1953 head the sharpest paper. Party institutions tried to discipline the image while he kept the card. Partners enter only as public acts: 12 July 1918 marriage to Olga Khokhlova; 2 March 1961 marriage to Jacqueline Roque; 1964 Life with Picasso as a memoir his camp tried to hinder. This catalog does not promote bedroom scenes to Facts. Workshop potters and foundrymen executed editions. A living and then posthumous market concentrated rents. 1992 Spain branded Guernica as a museum-industrial object, a sibling of that year’s access gain. 1907 used African and Iberian sculptural sources without naming makers.

Offsets are also documents. Guernica as anti-bombing public speech, the pavilion, the relief tours, the Franco-era non-return of the mural, MoMA’s Demoiselles, Barcelona 1963, Paris 1985, Reina Sofía 1992, Málaga 2003, Vallauris multiples, Blue-period public sickroom pictures as health visibility. Braque shares 1912. Dora Maar’s photographs of the 1937 studio are documents, not gossip.

What this does not say: that he bombed Gernika; that he ran the PCF; that he was a Resistance general; that 1953 cancels 1937; that 1937 cancels 1953; that a memoir’s private claims are our findings. Confidence is high on 1907, 1912, 1937, 1944, 1953, 1961, 1964, 1973, 1985, 1992. It is medium on occupation moral sign, appropriation itineraries, and analog drivers (energy, judicial erosion).

Demoiselles is not Guernica. Guernica is not a party card. A party card is not a museum. A museum is not a marriage. Official and independent URLs differ.

What would change the picture: a contradictory museum date for Guernica’s commission; a document that he held Vichy office; a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of 1937 rather than of later Spanish democracy. Until then the dossier refuses a saint of peace and refuses a cartoon of unique private cruelty built from unsourced scenes. Keep 1907, 1937, 1944, 1953 and 1992 on separate paths. A painter is famous enough to own those files. He is not the author of a 1992 museum statute and this page should keep that line visible without deleting later state uses of Guernica.