Great Opportunity!!! Admire the power of Picasso's art in the magnificent setting of the Sursock Museum. Until January 6 2020.... not to be missed

 The Sursock museum hosts the exhibition "Picasso and the family" in the form of paintings, sculptures and drawings from the Musée national Picasso-Paris. A tribute to the great master of cubism and a renewed admiration for Lebanon, whose cultural and artistic vocation never falters.

During his life, Pablo Picasso stayed in several Mediterranean cities: Aix, Antibes, Arles, Nîmes, Marseilles, Avignon, Cannes, Mougins, from which he was strongly inspired.

A unique cultural experience

On the initiative of the Musée national Picasso-Paris and its president, Mr. Laurent Le Bon, a “Picasso-Mediterranean” project was created to trace the part of the work of the master which was inspired by the Mediterranean landscape.

Launched in 2017, the exhibition traveled to ten countries in the Mediterranean basin including France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Malta ... and was displayed in more than 70 institutions, often on places that inspired the artist. While offering a global vision of Picasso's Mediterranean work, the project, which respects the identity of each site, does not impose the same works for all countries. Each exhibitor can establish his own program according to the theme he likes, and the public to discover the many facets of the artist. In Vallauris (France), Picasso ceramics were the focus. Mr. Le Bon, who holds our country in high regard, absolutely wanted Lebanon to be part of the Picasso-Mediterranean network and saw the Sursock museum as the ideal partner.But who could bring Picasso to Beirut?

Danièle de Picciotto

It is Danièle who will ensure that the project succeeds, and that Lebanon is placed on the Mediterranean route of this large-scale artistic exhibition. Before even knowing the amount of costs to be incurred, she offers to fully finance the Lebanese stopover of the works of the Spanish master. Why ? "In memory of my husband Edgar, great art collector, fan of Picasso, assiduous promoter of any cultural exchange between Lebanon and France". The kick is given.

Picasso and the family in Beirut

Yasmine Chémali (Art historian, head of collections and stage manager at the Sursock museum) chooses in partnership with the Picasso museum in Paris, the theme of the family, for the exhibition that the Lebanese public

is invited to see at the Sursock museum from September 26, 2019 to January 6, 2020. Bringing together twenty artistic works, the exhibition flies over 77 years of artistic creation (from 1895 to 1972) illustrating the life of the artist: Picasso chief of tribe , his children, but also his family in the wider sense, his friends or a beggar he meets. “The family is to symbolize the love that Picasso has for others and this is visible in his paintings, throughout his life. The choice of this human parenthesis, by the Sursock museum, will allow visitors to follow Picasso's career, to see it evolve, and to better understand it ”, explains Yasmine Chémali; "from this painting of the little girl with bare feet, which he painted at the age of 14 until this Maternity, executed at 91, a year before her death".