Picasso and Maya, a Story of Art and Family

On September 5, 1935, Marìa de la Concepciòn Ruiz-Picasso, better known as Maya, was born. Pablo Picasso’s first daughter, she was the fruit of the impassioned love of the painter for the French model Marie-Thérèse Walter. The arrival of this child was a revolution in the life of the artist, who never put up walls between his private sphere and his creative universe. All this can be discovered this Spring at the Musée Picasso, which celebrates, with a double exhibition, the recent donation of nine works from the personal collection of Maya. Safeguarded by the daughter until the painter’s death, these nine gems of the Parisian museum are a mirror of the rich dialogue that Picasso created between innovative instances of the avant-garde, the models of ancient art and the examples of non-Western art that flowed copiously through the Europe of the early 1900s. However, the arrival of these masterpieces from the Maya Ruiz-Picasso Collection is, above all, an opportunity to explore these precious testimonies to the relationship between father and daughter, reinterpreting, in light of this connection, some of the artist’s work. At the Hotel Salé which houses the museum, visitors can admire an exceptional selection of painted portraits of Maya as a child, along with sculptures, graphic works, photos and documents that express the intimacy of the Picasso family. Highlighted is the tender complicity between father and daughter and the influence of Maya in amplifying the fascination of this modern genius for the world of childhood.