More than 120 works spread across private collections and esteemed museums such as MoMA, the Met, and the Louvre illuminate the extensive reach of Picasso’s 1906 period. The show opens today, inviting audiences to witness a pivotal moment that reshaped modern art. Hosted at the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, this exhibition, titled Picasso 1906. The Great Transformation, surveys a year that marked a profound shift in how Picasso understood form, color, and the very language of representation. As visitors explore the collection, they encounter works that reveal the intensity of a turning point in the artist’s career and in the broader story of European modernism.
Displayed publicly for the first time in a major, curated context, the exhibition runs from this Wednesday through March 4, presenting a curated arc through Picasso’s radical experiments of 1906. The event also forms part of an international exhibitions program commemorating the 50th anniversary of the artist’s death. It situates 1906 not merely as a chronology of output but as a decisive stage that foregrounds the emergence of his modern idiom, setting the stage for subsequent breakthroughs in the years to come.
Kings of Spain Felipe and Letizia will inaugurate the show, underscoring its cultural significance for a broad audience. The focus is on how Picasso’s 1906 contributions helped define modern art, while also inviting reflection on the artist’s sensitive and nuanced portrayal of human subjects. The presentation emphasizes the moment when Picasso began to reframe the figure, exploring the body with a new openness and psychological depth that would influence generations of artists.
The exhibition asserts that Picasso’s 1906 work reframed the notion of the nude by centering the body itself as a site of meaning and intention. It presents a carefully developed argument that the artist’s approach to erotic vitality and intimate presence was an essential driver of his creative evolution, inviting viewers to reassess how modernity understands representation, form, and desire.
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The exhibition challenges the idea that The Young Ladies of Avignon deserves sole primacy in Picasso’s modernist breakthrough. It argues that 1906 was the year when the artist transformed the concept of the nude into a broader, more complex understanding of the body, and when a masculine gaze began to redefine perceptual codes. The curator, Eugenio Carmona, points to 1906 as the moment when Picasso’s exploration of form shifted into a more aggressive, more engaged language that reshaped how viewers experience the human figure.
Throughout the display, the presence of homoerotic sensibilities in Picasso’s works is treated as a decisive factor in the development of his visual vocabulary. The pieces on view are presented as expressions of an aesthetic vitality that binds body, sensation, and perception, revealing a creative climate where desire and artistic intention coexist and inform each other in dynamic ways.
As the exhibition traces Picasso’s evolving dialogue with the body, it also highlights how the artist began to test gender boundaries within his imagery. The presentation suggests that at times male figures acquire features associated with female forms, and vice versa, pointing to a fluidity of gender representation that appears with striking spontaneity in the artist’s practice.
A standout dimension of the show is its emphasis on intercultural dialogue. It traces how Picasso absorbed influences from El Greco, Corot, and Cézanne, while also engaging with artistic currents outside Europe. The display includes works that reflect a broader conversation about cross-cultural exchange, including references to Afro-European artistic practices that informed Picasso’s experimental language during this transformative year.