Illustrated Books by Pablo Picasso. The Museum Collection

A selection of works from the collection of books illustrated by Picasso housed in the museum. These twenty-nine titles bear witness to Picasso's life and career, revealing his close ties with some of the most outstanding of twentieth-century poets and writers.

The new Library and Documentation Centre at the Museu Picasso opens with a display of twenty-nine books illustrated by Picasso. The selection surveys the artist's life and work, and gives visitors a glimpse of the close relationships he maintained with significant poets and writers of the twentieth century such as André Salmon, Max Jacob, Jean Cocteau, Iliazd, Tzara, Reverdy and Paul Éluard.

The exhibition layout allows the public to contemplate the original books and unbound prints (displayed in the showcases and on the walls, respectively), and to leaf through digitised copies. Art and publication form a harmonious whole in outstanding works such as Saint Matorel (1901) and Le siège de Jérusalem (1914) by Max Jacob, for which Picasso produced a group of Cubist etchings. Ovid's Les métamorphoses (1931), illustrated with clear linear drawings, was one of Kahnweiler's favourite editions; Vingt poèmes, a French translation of Góngora's poems (1948), contained forty-one illustrated pages and handwritten text by Picasso on the printing plates. Finally, Dans l'atelier de Picasso (1957) is one of the first fifty copies of the book by Jaume Sabartés and includes a portfolio with a suite of thirteen additional lithographs.