Pablo Picasso’s 1920 painting Paysage de Juan-les-Pins, depicting a cheery surreal-ist home sitting in a palm-treed Mediterranean landscape, exhibits elements of cubism and reflects the joie de vivre of the beach near Cannes, France, where the artist summered. Typical of his abstract periods, the painting also reveals how his travels south (the European South, that is) influenced his work. At the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, the exhibition Picasso and the Allure of the South (January 29–May 22) explores this theme across seventy-seven works—half of them never before seen in the United States. “In 1909 and 1910, he began experimenting with cubism in Horta and then in Cadaqués, both in Spain,” says William Jeffett, a curator at the Dalí. With every trip to Southern France and Spain, the artist’s work evolved, from Barcelona-inspired bullfighting studies to beachy landscapes. Thanks to a partnership with the Musée Picasso-Paris, the exhibition will make its only stateside showing at the Dalí. thedali.org
