A Rebel and Subaltern Cosmopolitan? The Ironical Case of Pablo Ruiz Picasso in France (1900–1973)

Abstract The experience of Picasso in France from 1900 to 1973 is here approached from a new angle—that of his status as a foreigner—and with a set of new archival documents. The chapter thus presents the encounter between the young cosmopolitan genius and a nationalist country, shaken by waves of xenophobia until 1945. Picasso entered Paris at the time of the 1900 Exposition Universelle through the back door and dedicated his first artistic productions to those who shared the same marginalized status as him—all kinds of underdogs: bohemians, beggars, prostitutes, acrobats, clowns, and saltimbanques. Furthermore, he started expressing himself through a “cosmopolitanism of genres,” which was perceived as a powerful rejection of the French Académie des beaux arts and its famed “good taste.” Notably, the term Cubism was invented as a negative idiom, intended to ridicule an aesthetic coming from abroad, that transformed reality into small “cubes.” In 1940, scared by the rise of fascism all over Europe, Picasso filed for naturalization, but his application was denied. In 1944, he joined the French Communist Party and, in 1955, left Paris for the South of France, never to return—electing the region over the capital, craftsmen over academicians, local contacts over national establishment. Picasso’s attitude reveals a praxis of cultural plurality that was ahead of its time. He brilliantly succeeded in blurring the concept of national borders and anchored himself in the Mediterranean sphere, advancing a sense of belonging that came very close to contemporary cosmopolitanism forms.