Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso were bound by an extraordinary friendship to which the Luxembourg Museum pays tribute.

She moved to Paris in 1903

On the occasion of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Picasso’s death, the Musée du Luxembourg is offering a major exhibition on the story of an extraordinary friendship between two icons of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso and Gertrude Stein.
Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), a Jewish American immigrant, writer, poet and esthete, moved to Paris in 1903 shortly after the arrival of Picasso, then a young artist. Their position as foreigners and their marginality are the basis of their belonging to the Parisian bohemian world and their artistic freedom. Their friendship crystallized around their respective work, founder of cubism and the pictorial and literary avant-gardes of the 20th century. Their posterity is immense.

A century of art, poetry, music and theater

By examining their complicity and inventiveness, the Musée du Luxembourg exhibition will cross a century of art, poetry, music and theater through great figures such as Henri Matisse, Juan Gris, Marcel Duchamp, Ed Ruscha, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Bruce Nauman, Carl Andre, Joseph Kosuth, Roni Horn, Hanne Darboven, Glenn Ligon, John Cage, Steve Reich, Bob Wilson and even Philip Glass.

The Picasso Celebration

April 8, 2023 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso and thus places the year under the sign of the celebration of his work and his artistic heritage in France, Spain and internationally. The French and Spanish governments wanted to carry this major transnational event through a binational commission, bringing together the cultural and diplomatic administrations of the two countries.
The Picasso Celebration 1973-2023 revolves around fifty exhibitions and events that will be held in renowned cultural institutions in Europe and North America, and which together draw up a historiographical state of approaches to the work of Picasso. The commemoration, punctuated by official celebrations in France and Spain, will provide an overview of research and understanding of Picasso’s work, in particular during a major international symposium in the fall of 2023, in when the Picasso Study Center opened