Beloved by Picasso – The Power of the Model.

ARKEN is showing a wide and dazzling array of Pablo Picasso’s (1881-1973) best works in the exhibition Beloved by Picasso – The Powerof the Model. The exhibition has been created in close collaboration with Musée national Picasso-Paris.

Beloved by Picasso presents a total of 51 works in painting, sculpture, drawing and prints – including many masterpieces from the museum’s collection. The exhibition takes a fresh look at the relationships between the Spanish-born artist and his models.

Life and art

Pablo Picasso is one of the most important and acclaimed artists in the history of modern western art. He is famous for his capacity to renew himself and notorious for his uncompromising – some would say promiscuous – lifestyle. His passionate temperament influenced both his artistic practice and his at times turbulent existence.

Picasso’s art is often political and was created as a response to the events of his time. But his work is also private. In June 1932, one of his most productive years, he said himself: “The work one creates is just another way of keeping a diary”. The exhibition gives us unique insights into how Picasso’s friends, family, wives and lovers challenged and inspired his artistic develop­ment. With each new model, the visual style of the works changes, and Picasso’s loved ones are a constant source of inspiration for the artist’s wild and sudden changes in style.

The powerful gaze of the model

Art, love, family life and politics all merge in Picasso’s oeuvre. One of the many motifs he cultivated was the artist and his model. Picasso’s work with this motif gives both a humorous and caricatured picture of the innumerable examples in art history of the artist-model relationship.

The exhibition shows how Picasso’s loved ones were genuine partners and sheds light on the powerful gaze of the model. Picasso depicts the com­plexity of desire and the gaze as strong driving forces when he paints the relationship between artist and model. Picasso stages the desire to see and be seen.
The exhibition has been organized in a unique collaboration with Musée national Picasso-Paris.



 Pablo Picasso, Portrait de Marie-Thérèse, 1937. Oil and crayon on canvas. Musée national Picasso-Paris © Succession Picasso / VISDA 2019