From 11:00 to 19:00.
Last admission at 18:15.
On 8 February the Musée de l'Homme in Paris opens the exhibition Picasso and Prehistory, curated by Cécile Godefroy, a survey of forty works by the Malaga-born artist, some of them previously unpublished, which reflect the influence of the prehistoric world on his oeuvre.
Picasso's interest in prehistory is particularly evident in his creations from the interwar period, but its links can be seen from his childhood: the artist's fascination stems from a period marked by the first discoveries of cave paintings and engravings, megalithic sites, pieces of furniture: Picasso was born in 1881, two years after the discovery of the prehistoric paintings in the cave of Altamira, although they were not recognised as original Palaeolithic cave art until 1902.
In the first decades of the 20th century, in parallel with the emergence of the first avant-garde movements, rock art was highlighted, both aspects of which were taken up by the magazine Cahiers d'Art, which was launched in 1926.
The exhibition presents some forty works, including paintings, sculptures, ceramics and engravings by Picasso, in dialogue with objects from the prehistoric world that the artist knew about through originals or reproductions, together with a set of skulls and animal bones preserved in the artist's studios, which are being shown to the public for the first time.
The exhibition is part of the "Art and Prehistory" exhibition, which opened at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris last November and runs until next March, and which includes some 90 original prehistoric pieces and hundreds of digital images of paintings and engravings.
Picasso and Prehistory is part of the official programme of the Picasso Celebration 1973-2023, an initiative to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the artist's death between 2022 and throughout 2023, with some fifty exhibitions and events organised at renowned cultural institutions in Europe and the United States.