How the British came to love Picasso

Picasso once told Roland Penrose, his friend and biographer, that he left Barcelona in 1900 to go to England, the home of his idols Edward Burne-Jones and Aubrey Beardsley. It took Picasso 19 years to get here, when the Ballet Russes took him to London to design its production of Le Tricorne.

In honour of that history, next year Tate Britain and the English National Ballet will collaborate on a Picasso exhibition, examining his influence on British artists and his relationship with the British public. Judging by the preview, which was held this morning in the studio Picasso used on Floral Street in Covent Garden, the show merits a visit. It will follow the form of the Tate’s wildly successful Turner and the Masters exhibition, where Turners hung next to Titians for the viewer to compare and contrast. Picasso will share space with works by David Hockney, Francis Bacon, Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson, Duncan Grant, Wyndham Lewis and Graham Sutherland.