Loving Picasso: Art, Love and Unexpected Dialogues at JMuseo in Italy
Starting in April and running till October 12th, 2025, the JMuseo in Jesolo, Italy, hosts 'Loving Picasso', an exhibition offering a new perspective on the work of Pablo Picasso by focusing on the connection between his artistic production and his personal relationships. The show explores the central role that women played in the artist’s life—not only as muses, but as individuals who deeply influenced his personal and creative journey. Moving away from idealized narratives, the exhibition presents a concrete and structured investigation into how love, passion, and conflict left a lasting mark on his art.
LEFT: Pablo Picasso, Figure, 1957, Lithographic reproduction, 32.2 x 43.5 cm, (based on the artwork “Figure”, 1940), © Succession Picasso by SIAE 2025; RIGHT: Pablo Picasso, Le Repas frugal, 1904, Etching, 46.3 x 37.7 cm, © Succession Picasso by SIAE 2025;
Curated by Piernicola Maria Di Iorio, the exhibition unfolds as an intimate and layered narrative, structured around four key sections encompassing graphic works, ceramics, photography, and painting. The female figure emerges as a multifaceted presence—muse, companion, interlocutor, and at times, antagonist. A symbolic and real body through which Picasso explored desire, memory, and the very meaning of artistic creation.
LEFT: Man Ray and Dora Maar, Le Temps Déborde, 1947, Etched photograph, 27 x 33 cm, © Emmanuel Rudnitsky by SIAE 2025; RIGHT: Pablo Picasso, Harlequin, 1907, Color offset lithograph, 75.5 x 55 cm, © Succession Picasso by SIAE 2025
Seduction, power, and fragmentation
Through key series such as the powerful Tauromaquia (1959), the melancholic Suite des Saltimbanques (1905), the formative Barcelona Suite (1901–1907), and the section Dans l’atelier de Picasso, the exhibition highlights how the female figure served as a space for emotional and formal exploration—both symbolic and physical—for the artist. Women in Picasso’s works are not simply portraits, but emotional surfaces that embody historical tensions, inner passions, power dynamics, and ambivalent desires.
Picasso’s relationships with women were often marked by intensity, admiration, and tension. His companions were central to both his personal life and creative evolution—each one reflecting and inspiring distinct phases of his artistic language. From Fernande Olivier’s influence during the Rose Period to Marie-Thérèse Walter’s, from Dora Maar’s intellectual and surrealist impact to Françoise Gilot’s determined independence. While their faces and bodies were transformed into symbols of desire, anguish, or tenderness on canvas, these same women often paid a personal price within relationships defined by power imbalance.
 LEFT: Pablo Picasso, L'Atelier de Cannes, Lithograph, 32.2 x 43.5 cm, © Succession Picasso by SIAE 2025; RIGHT: Pablo Picasso, Owl, 1968, Vase, h 30 cm x w 22.5 cm, © Succession Picasso by SIAE 2025
Françoise Gilot and the art of saying goodbye
A crucial moment in the exhibition is the section dedicated to Françoise Gilot—the only woman who had the courage to leave Picasso. A painter and writer, Gilot was a conscious and determined protagonist, able to assert her artistic identity with strength and clarity. Her refined lithographs reveal a visual language that is both autonomous and personal, transforming the influence of the master into a new poetics, grounded in formal balance, chromatic freedom, and a lucid, intimate worldview.
With Gilot, a different idea of relationship emerges: no longer one of subordination to the artist-genius, but of critical dialogue and equal exchange. Her renowned memoir, “Life with Picasso”, published in 1964, was an act of emancipation that broke the silence imposed on women of her time and helped reshape the public image of the painter. Her presence in the exhibition is not merely a historical testimony, but an invitation to revisit Picasso’s legacy through the eyes of someone who knew how to love him without losing herself.
 LEFT: Françoise Gilot, Pages d'amour, 1951, Lithograph, 44 x 54 cm, © Succession Picasso by SIAE 2025; RIGHT: Robert Capa, Picasso Parade, 1948, Silver print, 20 x 31 cm, © Succession Picasso by SIAE 2025
The exhibition concludes with a selection of photographs by Robert Capa, taken in 1948 on the French Riviera: a 67-year-old Picasso, creative and at ease, captured between his studio and the beach, surrounded by family and friends—yet always with that penetrating gaze that transforms life into artistic material.
Between intimacy and documentation
“Loving Picasso” is a necessary reflection on the dialogue between love and creation, between power and inspiration, between masculine and feminine identity. It is an exploration of the ambiguities of art and life, where each work stands as a document, a confession, and a provocation all at once.
LEFT: Pablo Picasso, Passeggiata, 1959, Plate, diameter 42 cm, © Succession Picasso by SIAE 2025; RIGHT: Pablo Picasso, Series “Toros y Toreros”, Plate 10, Lithographic reproduction, 37 x 27 cm, © Succession Picasso by SIAE 2025
Produced by the Municipality of Jesolo and organized by Piuma in collaboration with Arthemisia, the exhibition invites the public to engage with Picasso’s legacy in all its complexity,acknowledging the fundamental contribution of the women who shared his journey and shedding a critical light on the powerful alchemy between affection, conflict, and creation.
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