Picasso, the Vallauris years

French language

Between 1948 and 1955, Pablo Picasso lived in Vallauris with Françoise Gilot and their two children, Claude and Paloma, then with Jacqueline Roque.

At the heart of this working-class and communist city, he shares the daily life of its inhabitants and continues his political commitment while breathing new energy into the city, inspiring festive events such as bullfights and musical parades. He is visited by many close friends, artists, poets, but also by photographers who immortalise Picasso's reunion with the Mediterranean.

During the Vallauris years, his artistic production is particularly fertile and renewed, through the assiduous practice of ceramics in the Madoura workshop, those of sculpture and painting in his workshop in Fournas or the discovery of linocutting. Collaboration with experienced local artists and craftsmen, including Suzanne and Georges Ramié, Robert Picault, Hidalgo Arnéra and Tobias Jellinek, enabled Picasso to explore the new potential of these different mediums. The artist's biography, his family life, his artistic and political friendships, as well as the mosaic of techniques he experimented and developed during this period are traced here through numerous essays and a rich iconography.

This exhibition is organized within the framework of "Picasso-Mediterranean", an international cultural event that will take place from 2017 to 2019. More than seventy institutions have worked together to create a programme based on the "obstinately Mediterranean" work of Pablo Picasso. At the initiative of the Musée national Picasso-Paris, this journey through the artist's creative work and the places that inspired him offers a unique cultural experience, with the aim of strengthening the links between all the shores.