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Musée Picasso Private Tour – Paris

Musée Picasso Paris Private Tour with a licensed tour guide. Situated in the famous Marais district, the Musée National Picasso-Paris houses the biggest Picasso collection in the World. Indeed, if Picasso was Spanish, he lived in France for most of his life and died on April 8, 1973, on the French Riviera.

The Picasso Museum in Paris (Musée national Picasso-Paris)

The Paris Picasso Museum not only owns the biggest collection of Picasso works in the world but also owns the most intimate one. Why? Because, in Paris you will discover part of Picasso’s personal collection. Indeed, when Picasso died, he left 40000 works of art in his various properties, and a thousand of them ended up a few years later in the hands of the French state to pay the succession fees of Picasso’s heirs. The Musée Picasso own Picasso’s personnal archives.

The Picasso Museum in Paris opened in 1985, a few years after Picasso’s death (1973), in a prestigious 17th-century Marais baroque private mansion. After being renovated, the museum reopened in 2014.

In 2021, the Musée national Picasso-Paris initiated the creation of the Centre d’Etudes Picasso, including an internet portal of Picasso works and archives. The center is planned to open in the first semester of 2025.

Picasso quote: “Give me a museum and I’ll fill it.”

Pablo Picasso in a Few Words

Pablo Picasso, born in Málaga, Spain, on October 25, 1881, was the son of an artist. He received his formal training at Barcelona’s art school. After his first visit to Paris in 1900, he made several extended stays before permanently settling in the French capital in 1904, where he would spend the majority of his adult life. Known by his remarkably long birth name (Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso), he became one of the 20th century’s most influential artists.

Renowned for his extraordinary productivity and versatility, Picasso mastered numerous artistic styles throughout his career till his death on April 8, 1973. His groundbreaking cubist works, created between 1907 and 1918, revolutionized modern art and profoundly influenced artists worldwide. Beyond co-founding the Cubist movement, Picasso pioneered constructed sculpture, co-invented collage techniques, and continually explored and developed a remarkable variety of artistic styles that transformed the art world.

Picasso, who was trained as a classical painter, drastically changed the arts during his life/career. Two quotes by Picasso particularly enlighten his work:

“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”

“Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.”

Picasso Museum Tour Organisation

The Picasso Tour Itinerary Mainly Follows a Chronological Order

From the Beginning to the Blue Period

• Picasso’s early works – Barcelona: Realism and academic Training.
• First contact with Paris during the 1900 Exposition Universelle (world’s fair).
• A penniless immigrant in Paris, the influence of the capital of the Arts on the young Picasso.
• The Melancholy of the Blue Period after Picasso’s friend Carlos Casagemas committed suicide in Barcelona.

From the Rose Period to Synthetic Cubism

• The Rose Period (1904): Picasso moved to Montmartre in the Bateau-Lavoir and met Fernande Olivier.
• Picasso met Gertrude Stein, his principal patron, and Matisse, a long-term friend and competitor.
• Working on Primitivism and Proto-Cubism: “Demoiselles d’Avignon“.
• Cézanne, Picasso, Braque, and the invention of Analytic Cubism.
• Synthetic Cubism: Continuing the deconstruction! Collage, assemblage, how art is becoming something else.

Ballets  Russes Program illustrated by Picasso. Clear line drawing.

World War 2

• A polyangular approach in portrait, applied to Picasso’s Mistresses, Marie-Thérèse Walter and the surrealist photographer Dora Maar.
• Evocation of the Atelier of 7 rue des Grands Augustins.
• Picasso work was classified “degenerate art” by the Nazi but protected by Arno Brecker the official sculptor of the Nazi regimen.
• Françoise Gillot, the woman who said no to Picasso. She is the mother of Claude and Paloma Picasso.
• Political involvement: In 1944, Picasso joined the Communist Party.

Picasso in the South of France, Ceramics and the Last Years

• South of France, Valauris: The Madura Potterie Workshop – Ceramics. Picasso intended to make the art accessible to everyone.
• Jacqueline Roque, Picasso’s second wife, then became known as Jacqueline Picasso.
• The last years. Some of is last works pay tribute to Manet or Velasquez.
• Picasso died on April 8, 1973 (aged 91). The Musée Picasso opened on September 28, 1985

Some Other Aspects of the Tour

Picasso’s Personal Art Collection

The Musée Picasso houses a significant collection of works from Picasso’s personal art collection. The hanging of the works changes quite often. Depending on what’s on show on the day of the tour, you may see some Renoir, Cézanne, Degas, Rousseau, Seurat, de Chirico, Derain, Modigliani, Braque, Miró, or Matisse works.

Guillermo Kuitca Chapelle (from October 15, 2024, to December 31, 2027)

On the tour itinerary, a little after the Analytic Cubism room is the chapel of Hôtel Salé, where Argentine artist Guillermo Kuitca (born 1961) created a specific work in his “Cubistoid Painting” style. The links between the two art concepts are easily understandable.

World War 2 Second Room

The items in the permanent collection are subject to change over time. In most of the rooms, the changes are usually marginal. This is usually not the case with the WWII second room, which generally features a theme that is quite frequently renewed, such as, for example, “Françoise Gillot Paintings” or “the different phases of Guernica conception.”

World War 2 Third Room

This room is exciting for its display case, where are usually displayed some WWII-related objects from Picasso’s Personal Archives. You may see, for example, a Picasso ration stamp from the French occupation by the Nazis, or other fascinating objects, such as the Original French Citizenship request by Picasso of April 3, 1940, which the French administration refused, or a handwritten version of the famous Poem Liberté (Freedom), offered by Surrealist poet Paul Éluard to Picasso.

Temporary Exhibits

Musée Picasso regularly organizes world-class temporary exhibits, such as: “‘Degenerate’ art Modern art on trial under the Nazis” (February 18, 2025 – May  25, 2025) or “Jackson Pollock: The Early Years” (1934-1947)” (October 15, 2024 – January 19, 2025), etc.

The temporary exhibits are not part of the Musée Picasso private tour; however, if there is one on the day of the tour, you can visit the corresponding exhibit room at the end of the tour.

Amenities: the Rooftop Café and the Garden

The Picasso museum offers a Rooftop café; its terrace is the ideal place to admire the Hôtel Salé’s terrace and courtyard. From April to October, you can also enjoy the Musée Picasso’s garden, which is accessible through the Museum’s lower level. From the garden, you can admire the rear facade of the Hôtel Salé.

More about Musée Picasso in Paris

Temporary Exhibits

Musée Picasso regularly organizes world-class temporary exhibits, such as: “Degenerate art. Modern art on trial under the Nazis“ (February 18, 2025 – May  25, 2025) or “Jackson Pollock: The Early Years (1934-1947)” (October 15, 2024 – January 19, 2025), etc.

The temporary exhibits are not part of the Musée Picasso private tour; however, if there is one on the day of the tour, you can visit the corresponding exhibit room at the end of the tour.

Amenities: the Rooftop Café and the Garden

The Picasso museum offers a Rooftop café; its terrace is the ideal place to admire the Hôtel Salé’s terrace and courtyard. From April to October, you can also enjoy the Musée Picasso’s garden, which is accessible through the Museum’s lower level. From the garden, you can admire the rear facade of the Hôtel Salé.

More Picasso Works in Paris

The Centre Pompidou (Beaubourg) houses a significant Picasso collection; however, Beaubourg will be closed from 2025 to 2030 for renovation. Beaubourg’s most famous Picasso Master piece, “L’Aubade”, is temporarily on show in the Musée Picasso.

The Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris houses a few Picasso works. You can type “Vollard” into the museum website’s search box to see what is on display.

From 2026, Centre Pompidou and Musée Picasso will share their reserves in a new site called “Centre Pompidou Francilien – Fabrique de l’Art / Musée national Picasso Paris“. The 30,000 sqm center will open in Massy (a suburb in the south of Paris, not far from Orly airport). The reserve center will also have space for creation and exhibition open to the public.

Picasso Related Tours in Paris

We do not offer other specific Picasso-related guided tours. Nevertheless, Picasso is evoked in three of our Paris Walking Tours.

On the 2-hour Saint-Germain-des-Prés tour, we briefly discuss Surrealism, and the itinerary even features a Picasso sculpture. On the 3-hour Saint-Germain-des-Prés tours, we also have enough time to visit (outside only) 7 rue des Grands Augustins, where the famous Picasso workshop was located, and where he painted Guernica in just four months. Gertrude Stein’s house, located on the next street, may also be part of the 3-hour tour.

On the Montmartre tour, we go to the Bateau-Lavoir Workshop (outside only), where Picasso painted and unveiled the famous proto-Cubist work “Demoiselle d’Avignon” (now in the MOMA in New York). It is also possible to take a little detour to see Picasso’s first studio in Paris in 1900, in Rue Gabrielle. Lastly, also on the tour itinerary is the renowned cabaret Lapin Agile, where Picasso often went. A Picasso painting is named after it (now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York).

Last, we also evoke the 1942 Arno Breker Exhibition of Nazi Art in the Musée de l’Orangerie versus the destruction of Nazi so-called “Degenerate Art” in The Musée du Jeu de Paume during our World War 2 tours. During the Paris occupation, Nazi Official sculptor Arno Breker protected the so-called “degenerate artist” Pablo Picasso.    

Recommended Articles about Picasso

The Six Women Who Shaped the Life and Work of Picasso (BBC).