Pablo Picasso, Spanish 1881–1973, Reclining woman (Femme couchée), 19 June 1932, oil on canvas, 38.0 x 46.0 cm, 55.6 x 63.0 cm (framed). Centre Pompidou, Paris, Musée national d’art moderne-Centre de création industrielle. Donated by Louise and Michel Leiris, 1984. Succession Picasso/Copyright Agency, 2022 Photograph: Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI/Bertrand Prévost/Dist.
Pablo Picasso, Spanish 1881–1973, Cat seizing a bird (Chat saisissant un oiseau), 22 April 1939, oil on canvas, 81.0 x 100.0 cm. Musée national Picasso-Paris. Donated in lieu of tax, 1979. Succession Picasso/Copyright Agency, 2022 Photo. RMN-Grand Palais (Musée national Picasso-Paris) / Mathieu Rabeau.
Pablo Picasso, Spanish 1881–1973, Portrait of Olga in an armchair (Portrait d’Olga dans un fauteuil), spring 1918, oil on canvas, 130.0 x 88.8 cm. Musée national Picasso-Paris Donated in lieu of tax, 1979. Succession Picasso/Copyright Agency, 2022 Photograph: RMN-Grand Palais (Musée national Picasso-Paris) / Mathieu Rabeau.
Pablo Picasso, Spanish 1881–1973, Mother and child (Mère et enfant), summer 1907, oil on canvas, 81.0 x 60.0 cm. Musée national Picasso-Paris. Donated in lieu of tax, 1979. Succession Picasso/Copyright Agency, 2022 Photograph: RMN-Grand Palais (Musée national Picasso-Paris) / Adrien Didierjean.
Pablo Picasso has created some of the most iconic paintings of the 20th century—and now these famous works are coming to Melbourne this June for The Picasso Century at the National Gallery of Victoria.
Set to capture Picasso’s extraordinary career, the exhibition isn’t just about Picasso as a lone artist, but also about his connection to others. The show will align Picasso’s work in dialogue with the many artists, poets and intellectuals he interacted with throughout the 20th century, including Guillaume Apollinaire, Georges Braque, Salvador Dalí, Alberto Giacometti, Françoise Gilot, Valentine Hugo, Marie Laurencin, Dora Maar, André Masson, Henri Matisse, Dorothea Tanning and Gertrude Stein.
Including 70 works by Picasso, The Picasso Century looks at the array of influences, encounters and collaborative relationships that steered Picasso through many distinct artistic periods: his Blue Period, Cubism and Surrealism.
By further making artistic and intellectual connections between Picasso’s works and the world around him, the show also features over 100 works by 50 of his contemporaries. This includes artists rarely shown in Australia, such as Natalia Goncharova, Julio González, Wifredo Lam, Suzanne Valadon and Maria Helena Vieira da Silva.
As Tony Ellwood AM, director of NGV, says, “This exhibition offers visitors an extraordinary insight into the development of modern art and the preeminent figure at its centre, Pablo Picasso. Through more than 170 works of art—including many that have never been seen in Australia—audiences will come to appreciate the many ways in which Picasso influenced—and was influenced by—the artistic community that surrounded him.”
Organised into Fifteen thematic sections, The Picasso Century traces the many distinct periods that shaped the artist’s career over more than seven decades, while also situating his work within a broader artistic and geographical context.
In addition, Picasso’s influence in the 21st century is explored through the 2009-10 video work, I see a Woman Crying (Weeping Woman). Created by contemporary Dutch artist Rineke Dijkstra it references Picasso’s 1937 series of paintings Weeping Woman—one of which of course rose to Melbourne infamy when it was stolen from the NGV in the 80s.
Developed for the NGV by the Centre Pompidou and the Musée national Picasso-Paris, and drawn from French national collections, as well as the NGV Collection, The Picasso Century will ensure Melbourne sees some of the master’s most famous and revered works, in the flesh.
The Picasso Century
National Gallery of Victoria
11 June—9 October
In their debut solo exhibition Extinguishing Hope, now showing at UTS Gallery, Akil Ahamat uses darkness—both literal and metaphorical—to examine what can be gained when everything is lost.
Existing in the space between ritual, performance and ceremony, the body-centred work of Latai Taumoepeau rewrites the stories that shape our perception of Oceania—while using ancient traditions to tackle our most urgent modern concerns. Taumoepeau is now participating in Re-Stor(y)ing Oceania at Artspace.
Congratulations to Aisha Sherman-Noth, who has won the 2025 Glover Prize for Weeping birches on the avenue. The Tasmanian-based artist wins $80,000 for the painting, which depicts weeping birch and poplar trees along the Brooker Highway into Hobart.
Consuelo Cavaniglia’s sunny studio in an industrial area of Sydney’s inner west reflects the artist’s fascination with light. Her recent glass works, now showing at Chau Chak Wing Museum, play with apertures, shadows, reflections and transparencies.
The Koori Mail Indigenous Art Award returns to Lismore Regional Gallery for its second iteration following the gallery’s restoration after the 2022 floods. The award celebrates the vibrancy of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art across Australia.
In his latest exhibition, now showing at Bett Gallery, Postmodern painter and writer Imants Tillers is influenced by a variety of sources including the metaphysical style of Italian artist Georgio de Chirico.
