Pablo Picasso: Cubism, Ceramics and the Hakone Pavilion

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Artist entry · Cubism · Spain and France

At 23:15 on 25 October 1881, in Málaga on the Andalusian coast, Pablo Ruiz Picasso was born to a painter of birds who taught drawing. He moved to Barcelona at fourteen, settled in Paris after 1900, co-founded Cubism with Georges Braque and kept changing manner until his death in 1973 at the age of 91. He belongs in our Artists A to Z because one of the largest single holdings of his ceramics hangs not in Spain or France but in the mountains of Hakone, two hours from Tokyo.

At a glance

Fact sheet

Born	25 October 1881, Málaga, Spain
Died	8 April 1973, Mougins, France
Training	Under his father, José Ruiz y Blasco, then art school in Barcelona from 1896
Movements	Cubism (with Georges Braque); neoclassical and Surrealist phases
Main media	Oil painting, drawing, etching, lithograph and linocut, sculpture, ceramics
Key works	Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907); Guernica (1937)
Ceramics	From 1946 at the Madoura pottery of Georges and Suzanne Ramié, Vallauris
Where to see him in Japan	The Picasso Pavilion, Hakone Open-Air Museum, opened 1984: 319 works in rotation

Chronology

Timeline

Year	Event
1881	Born in Málaga on 25 October
1895	Moves with his family to Barcelona; enters art school the next year
1900	First stay in Paris
1901–1904	Blue Period
1907	Paints Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
1909–1919	Analytic, then Synthetic Cubism with Braque
1935	Birth of his daughter Maya, with Marie-Thérèse Walter, on 5 September
1937	Paints Guernica
1946	First ceramics at Vallauris
1973	Dies on 8 April at Mougins

The method: take the object apart, then play

Cubism was a mechanism for looking. Between 1909 and 1912 Picasso and Braque broke bottles, guitars and faces into planes in browns and greys; from 1912 they glued in oilcloth, wallpaper and newspaper, and Still Life with Chair Caning of that year is usually called the first Cubist collage. The habit of borrowing a printed surface links him directly to the Pop artists who followed fifty years later.

The ceramics show the other side. In the summer of 1946, visiting a pottery exhibition at Vallauris with Françoise Gilot, he modelled three small figures; when he came back a year later and found them fired, he began working in clay at speed with the Ramiés. Owls, bulls, fauns, faces and doves fill the plates and jugs of the following decades. For the Japanese tradition of the painted pot, the Japanese arts and cultural heritage reader is the place to start.

The pavilion in the mountains

The Hakone Open-Air Museum, Japan's first open-air museum when it opened in 1969, added its Picasso Pavilion in 1984. The core is a group of ceramics that came to the museum from Maya Picasso, the daughter born in 1935: one count gives 188 ceramic works, within a collection of 319 pieces that also takes in drawings, prints, tapestry, gemmail glass and objects in gold and silver. The pavilion closed for renovation and reopened on 27 July 2019, and the works are shown in rotation rather than all at once.

Maya is also the girl in one of the paintings most often reproduced on clothing. Picasso painted her at least fourteen times during her childhood, and Maya with a Boat of 1938 is one of that run; the Musée Picasso in Paris brought the portraits together in 2022. Seen from Tokyo, the circle closes neatly: the child in the picture is the reason the clay is in Hakone.

How to read a piece

1. Museum posters name their show. The La Femme à la collerette bleue poster from Moderna Museet, 50 by 70 cm, reproduces a painting of 1941 under the museum's name; the Picasso and Modern British Art poster from Edinburgh does the same for a seated nude. Neither is a signed print, and both are described as posters.
2. Prints carry evidence in the margin. A Picasso etching or linocut should show a plate mark or block edge, paper with a watermark and, if signed, a pencil signature. A signature printed in the image is a reproduction feature.
3. Clothing is a reproduction with a date. The vintage Maya with a Boat T-shirt, with a signature print on the back, is dated by its tag and stitching; the tops and knitwear shelf holds other art tees.
4. Ceramics need a stamp. Madoura editions are usually marked underneath, with stamps such as Madoura Plein Feu for the workshop and Edition Picasso for an authorised edition, sometimes with a number. The marks support an identification but never prove it alone, so ask for photographs of the base, form and glaze; our authenticity and condition guarantee sets out how we describe such details.

Where the record differs

Scholars agree on the Blue Period of 1901 to 1904 and the Rose Period that followed, but the names of many later periods are still argued over. The story that the move from blue to rose came with Fernande Olivier is now treated as mistaken; the reappearance of acrobats in 1905 is the more accepted marker. We use the uncontested names and give dates for the rest.

Answered plainly

Where can I see Picasso in Japan?

At the Picasso Pavilion of the Hakone Open-Air Museum, opened in 1984. The collection of 319 works is shown in rotation and is strongest in ceramics that came from Maya Picasso.

Who is the girl in Maya with a Boat?

Maya, Picasso's daughter with Marie-Thérèse Walter, born on 5 September 1935. He painted her repeatedly in 1938.

Is an exhibition poster a print by the artist?

No. It is a museum poster that reproduces his painting. It is collected for the exhibition it records, its paper and its condition.

Where next

• Bridge: how this artist fits the wider story of Japan as a soft power, from the underground to tradition, in The New Japonisme, our manifesto on Japan's soft power
• Up: our reader on paintings and the discipline of looking
• Across: the melting watches of Salvador Dalí and the screenprints of Andy Warhol
• Down: art pieces and objects on the Japanese arts and antiques shelf

References

1. Pablo Picasso Collection, The Hakone Open-Air Museum
2. Indoor exhibits: Picasso Pavilion reopening, The Hakone Open-Air Museum
3. Picasso's Lineage, guide to the collection (PDF), The Hakone Open-Air Museum
4. Hakone Open-Air Museum, Wikipedia
5. Pablo Picasso, Wikipedia
6. Picasso ceramics: an essential guide to stamps and markings, Christie's
7. Maya Ruiz-Picasso, daughter of Pablo (exhibition notes)
8. Maya Ruiz-Picasso, Daughter of Pablo (exhibition review)

Written by The Japonista Curation and Concierge Team, Tokyo, Japan. Last reviewed 14 November 2026.