Picasso

1931 :
- Publication of the « Chef-d’œuvre inconnu » by Balzac with illustrations  by Picasso and of « Ovid’s Metamorphoses ».
- Executes many sculptures in which the face of Marie-Therese is omnipresent.
- Summer in Juan-Les-Pins.
- Start the engravings, which will constitute the Suite Vollard.

1932 :
- Exhibition in New York “Picasso’s Abstractions” then in London “Thirty Years of Pablo Picasso”. 
- First encounter with Brassaï rue de la Boétie.
- First retrospective of 236 works chosen by Picasso at the Galerie Petit in Paris, which then travels to the Kunsthaus in Zurich.
- Publication of the first volume of the catalogue raisoné of Picasso’s works by C.Zervos. 
 
1933 :
- Continues engraving of the Suite Vollard.
- Beginning of the Minotaur theme (which keeps Picasso busy during the whole year). First engravings are published by Skira et Tériade. The first cover is the famous collage “Minotaur”.
- In the same review, Brassaï publishes photographs of Picasso’s sculpture at Boisgeloup with a text by André Breton.

1934 :
- Travels to Spain: Madrid, Toledo, Saragossa, Barcelona with Olga and Paulo.
- Fernande Olivier publishes her memoirs “Picasso and his Friends”.
- Publication of first volume of Geiser’s catalogue raisonné of engravings and lithographs.

1935 :
- “THE MINOTAUROMACHY”, autobiographical engraving symbolizes a difficult period for Picasso: he stops painting to start writing poetry published by the magazine Cahier d’Art. 
- Separation with Olga.
- Summer in Boisgeloup and Paris. 
- October 5: Birth of Maria de la Concepcion called Maya, daughter of Marie-Therese.
- Jaime Sabartès becomes his personal secretary. 

1936 :
- Beginning of close friendships with poet Paul Eluard. 
- Meets Dora Maar.
- Beginning of Civil War in Spain.
- The Spanish Republic symbolically appoints him director of the Prado Museum.
- First stay at Mougins in Southern France with Zervos, Eluard and their wives, Man Ray and René Char. Dora Maar joins them. Goes to Vallauris for the first time.
- Leaves the Boisgeloup studio bur Vollard lends him a house in Tremblay-sur-Mauldre. 
- Drop curtain for Rolland’s play “Le 14 Juillet”.
 

1937 :
- Picasso denounces Francoism in « Dream and Lie of Franco » which he sells in aid of the Spanish Republicans.
- New studio 7 rue des Grands-Augustins (where Balzac approximately sets the action of “Le Chef d’oeuvre inconnu”), found by Dora Maar. 
- On April 26, the Germans bomb Spanish town Guernica.  
- The whole world is shocked and Picasso has found the subject of the painting for the Spanish Pavilion.
- July 12: GUERNICA is shown at the Spanish Pavilion of the Paris Universal Exhibition with two sculptures by Picasso.       
- Summer in Mougins with Dora Maar. 
- Visits Paul Klee in Bern.
- “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” leave France, bought by the MoMA in New York. 
- Numerous portraits of Dora Maar and Marie-Therese, each with her own color range and representational code specific to her personality. 

1938 :
- Guernica and a few sketches are shown in London, in Europe and in the United States between 1938 and 1939.
- Gertrude Stein publishes “Picasso”. 
 

1939 :
- Beginning of WWII.
- Deaths of his mother on January 13 in Barcelona and of art dealer Ambroise Vollard in July.
- Major traveling retrospective at the MoMA then in the US “Picasso, Fourty years of his art”, Forty years of his own collection among which Guernica and its preparatory sketches.
 

1940 :
- Serval stays in Royan with Dora Maar.
- Picasso gives up the Rue de la Boétie and moves into the Grands-Augustins, Rosenberg exiles himself to the United States and Kahnweiler goes to the free zone.