Pablo Picasso spent much of the summer of 1921 in a garage. In this unlikely studio in a rented villa in Fontainebleau, France, he worked tirelessly to create an astonishing body of work. Among his most astonishing creations were two radically different six-foot-tall canvases, painted side by side within weeks of each other: Three Women in Spring and Three Musicians. Picasso in Fontainebleau will reunite these two monumental paintings with other works from the artist's pivotal three-month stay in the improvised studio, complemented by photographs and archival documents.

Picasso's simultaneous pursuit of different styles had been a source of controversy in the art world for several years. Was Picasso progressing or regressing? Was he avant-garde or academic? Revolutionary or reactionary? The critics were divided. These questions speak to the ways in which Picasso's Fontainebleau work defies categorisation and upsets expectations of how artists develop.

The exhibition presents four monumental canvases - two versions of Three Women in Spring and two of Three Musicians - together with other paintings, drawings, pastels and etchings produced during the artist's brief stay in Fontainebleau. Rarely seen photographs of the studio and the Picasso family will further contextualise the artist's daily life and artistic practice. The exhibition will also explore new insights into the process and experimental spirit that characterised Picasso's work at Fontainebleau.

Organised by Anne Umland, The Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture, with Alexandra Morrison, Curatorial Assistant, and Francesca Ferrari, former Mellon-Marron Research Consortium Fellow, Department of Painting and Sculpture, The Museum of Modern Art. On the occasion of the centenary of the artist's death, MoMA's exhibition is part of the international Picasso Celebration 1973-2023, with the extraordinary support of the Musée National Picasso-Paris.

From the website: https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5530