“Paul Éluard loved Picasso and was loved by him, probably like nobody else: there was a uniquely unsuspecting tenderness between them, as between equals”, wrote Claude Roy, who knew both artists.
Éluard was Picasso’s best friend from 1935 onwards. Following the disappearance of Apollinaire, Éluard was the only poet Picasso could converse with and exchange or share ideas with. The surrealist poet soon became literally captivated by the demiurge-artist, writing “With Picasso, the walls come down”.
Picasso was distraught by the premature disappearance of Éluard in 1952. This was a loss of the poet who most intuitively penetrated his art and the person with whom he had shared, and thanks to whom he had lived, the adventure of communism.
The exhibition ‘Pablo Picasso, Paul Éluard. A Sublime Friendship’ offers a themed and chronological tour of both characters, based on books and poems, illustrated works, portraits and drawings by Éluard and Nusch Éluard, pieces from the Paul Éluard collection, as well as photos by Man Rayand Brassaï, correspondence and documents relating to meetings between the two friends.
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