James Woodall

Année érotique

Plenty of sex, an unslakeable thirst for work and the dread of death lie behind Picasso’s miracle year of 1932, surveyed in a monumental new show at Tate Modern

issue 10 March 2018

By 1930, Pablo Picasso, nearing 50, was as rich as Croesus. He was the occupant of a flat and studio in rue La Boétie, in the ritzy 8th arrondissement, owner of a country mansion in the north-west, towards Normandy, and was chauffeured around in an adored Hispano-Suiza. He stored the thousands of French francs from the sale of his work in sacks deep inside a Banque de France vault, like a ‘country bumpkin who keeps his savings sewn into his mattress’, someone once said.

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