Cult Rooms: PicassoPablo Picasso worked in seven different studios through his life. In one—a converted parfumerie—he painted war with peace, and a little quiet.
Cult Rooms: PicassoPablo Picasso worked in seven different studios through his life. In one—a converted parfumerie—he painted war with peace, and a little quiet.
In 1948, Pablo Picasso moved to the south of France. As a staunch communist and cherished member of the French Communist Party, he had been invited to the town of Vallauris by the local party administration to paint the nave of a Cistercian chapel. An advocate for peace, Picasso had hoped to create a work that depicted a fight “against war.” He ended up producing La Guerre et La Paix—one of his largest murals. Pieced together from an exhaustive 300 preparatory sketches, the work was inspired by his rereading of Leo Tolstoy’s epic novel, War and Peace.
Picasso became consumed by the project, his idea becoming larger than anything the modest villa he shared with his mistress, Françoise Gilot, could house. So he moved into a former parfumerie, Le Fournas, readying himself for a...
