Today's Edition
MUDHI ALOBTHANI (ABU DHABI)
Louvre Abu Dhabi, in collaboration with the Musée national Picasso-Paris and France Muséums, presents "Picasso, the Figure", a landmark exhibition dedicated to Pablo Picasso, the most influential artist of the 20th century.
Running from January 21 to May 31, 2026, the exhibition traces Picasso's treatment of figuration from early experiments with Cubism to classical portraits, surrealist works, and his bold late paintings.
Under the curatorship of Cécile Debray, President of the Musée national Picasso-Paris, Virginie Perdrisot-Cassan, Chief Curator and Head of Sculpture and Ceramics at the Musée national Picasso-Paris, and Aisha AlAhmadi, Associate Curator at Louvre Abu Dhabi, the exhibition offers a retrospective and a chronological itinerary of Picasso's work, intertwining his radical artistic transformations with Greek mythology, manifested through his various techniques on painting, sculpture, drawing and ceramics.
The exhibition brings together over 130 artworks, including seven from Louvre Abu Dhabi's collection, six from the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi, and other significant loans from France, Qatar, Lebanon, the UAE and West Asia.
Valuable contributions from eight lending institutions, private collections, and one art gallery – including Musée du Louvre (Paris), Mobilier National (Paris), Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art (Doha), Dalloul Art Foundation (Beirut), Meem Gallery (Dubai), and Barjeel Art Foundation (Sharjah) – further enrich the showcase.
Manuel Rabaté, Director of Louvre Abu Dhabi, told Aletihad: "What makes this exhibition different is the story it tells. By focusing on the figure, visitors can understand how Picasso evolved - how he constantly transformed his way of seeing and representing humanity."Picasso's importance in art history lies in his refusal to follow a single style. Over more than seven decades, he continuously reinvented form, moving from early realism to Cubism, classical figuration, Surrealism and expressive late works. The human body remained central throughout - fragmented, idealised, distorted or mythologised - becoming a vehicle for emotion, politics and personal experience.
Rabaté explained that the exhibition uses myth as a framework to make this evolution accessible. "A myth is a way of telling a story," he said. "Through myth, you can follow Picasso's creative journey and understand how his ideas developed over time."
Rather than framing Picasso within a European narrative, the exhibition places his work in dialogue with artists from the Arab world, a curatorial choice Rabaté described as essential.Key works by six Arab artists are also featured throughout the exhibition, highlighting Picasso's impact on modern art in the Arab world and its resonance beyond Europe. Among them are paintings by Iraqi artists Dia al-Azzawi, Jewad Selim, and Shakir Hassan Al Said, in addition to Egyptian artist Ramses Younan.
A painted ceramic work by the Algerian painter and ceramicist Baya Mahieddine will also be showcased. Mahieddine's 1947 exhibition at Galerie Maeght in Paris drew the attention of Surrealists and of Picasso himself, illustrating a reciprocal artistic exchange.
"This exhibition is relevant to its territory," he said. "It creates a discussion between Picasso and Arab masters, showing how modern art developed through shared questions, not isolated histories."
This dialogue reinforces Picasso's position as a universal figure whose work transcends geography.
"Picasso became a universal myth," Rabaté said. "He belongs to humanity. Seeing his work alongside archaeological objects and modern Arab art allows us to rediscover him and understand modernity from multiple perspectives."
The exhibition also highlights aspects of Picasso's practice that are often overlooked. Beyond painting, he worked extensively in sculpture, drawing, ceramics and textiles, driven by curiosity and experimentation.
"Not everyone knows that Picasso produced a remarkable body of ceramics," Rabaté noted. "The dialogue between his ceramic works and those of artists like Baya is especially moving."
Visitors are also introduced to what inspired Picasso himself, including African art, ancient forms and archaeological objects - influences that shaped his radical simplification of the human figure.
"You can see what Picasso was looking at," Rabaté added. "This helps visitors enter into his creative process and understand how he built his visual language."
Debray and Perdrisot-Cassan said: "Conceived from the world's richest collection of the artist's works and developed in a spirit of exchange with the teams and collections of Louvre Abu Dhabi, an institution that stands as a cultural crossroads between East and West, archaeology and modern art, the exhibition explores how Picasso continually reinvented representation and expression, from the hieratic signs of Cubism to the classical bodies of the 1920s and the hybrid beings of his Surrealist period. It provides a profound immersion into a prolific and fascinating body of work, rich in universal resonances, with several masterpieces being shown at Louvre Abu Dhabi for the very first time."
Exhibition Programme
Visitors are first welcomed to the exhibition by a sequence from the film Le Mystère Picasso by French film director and screenwriter Henri-Georges Clouzot, which introduces the artist at work and sets the tone for the exploration of Picasso's artistic evolution in modernity.
Structured into five thematic sections, the exhibition connects Picasso's formal evolution with enduring mythological archetypes. Early encounters with Catalan sculpture and African and Oceanic art shaped his radical simplifications of the body and the emergence of Cubism. A post-war return to classicism reveals his dialogue with the masters through refined portraits and idealised forms. The hybrid creatures of Surrealism, inspired by the Minotaur myth, explore Picasso's fascination with metamorphosis and the psychological tensions within the figure. From the 1930s onward, his figures become more monumental and sculptural, echoing prehistoric idols and the emotional weight of conflict.
The programme features special film screenings, including "Mystery of Picasso" on January 23 and "Young Picasso" on April 25, offering insights into the artist's life and practice.
The museum will also host a variety of educational activities for adults, families and youth. Highlights include a specially designed children's path which enables young visitors to discover the exhibition through questions and fun facts. The museum's ongoing programmes, such as Drawing at the Museum and Book an Easel, will feature sessions dedicated to the exhibition alongside specially curated guided tours.
A recorded podcast on the exhibition will be available on Louvre Abu Dhabi's website and mobile application, allowing the public to explore its themes from anywhere.
