The "Portrait of Stalin", a condemnation of "his" family
On March 5, 1953, Stalin died. "Staline est mort": the headline on the front page of l’Humanité is a reflection of the tremendous emotion shared by the entire communist community. The Party headquarters was draped in black and a rally was planned for March 10 at the Vélodrome d'Hiver. Aragon commissioned a drawing from Picasso to be published in Les Lettres françaises in homage to the "father of the people" and "Generalissimo." Picasso drew inspiration from a photograph from 1903 of Stalin in his youth, and the drawing caused a scandal within the Party. At the time, Maurice Thorez was in the Soviet Union, where he had been undergoing treatment for three years. Picasso's portrait of Stalin was condemned ten days later by the PCF Secretariat "without questioning the feelings of Picasso, the great artist, whose commitment to the working class is known to all." Picasso showed no regret about the drawing. "I brought flowers to the funeral. My wreath was not appreciated. That's how it always goes in families."[1] This short statement may seem trivial, but coming from Picasso, it is not. We are aware of his attachment to family, to his tribe. For him, belonging to the Communist Party was in the same spirit. Each member was bound by solidarity as well as by secrecy, by respect and discretion. He was accountable only to the members of his "family"—that is to say, in this case, to his closest comrades within the Party.
The secretariat forced Aragon to publish a set of outraged letters of disapproval in Les Lettres françaises; they appeared in the March 26 issue. In one of them, André Fougeron questioned the artist's integrity,[2] writing: "[¼] My sadness stems from the fact that if in 1953 a great artist is incapable of producing a simple drawing of the man most loved by the proletarians of the entire world, it is an indication of the extent of our weaknesses in this area, despite the fact that our country has some of the greatest portrait artists ever to have been known [¼]."[3]
Thorez, about to return to France, was concerned about the risk of a split between the PCF and the intellectuals, and wished to state his opposition to the condemnation of the Portrait of Stalin. A photograph with the caption "Picasso visits Maurice Thorez" on the front page of the April 23, 1953 issue of l'Humanité achieved this aim.[4]
Nevertheless, the PCF and its press ignored the first major public presentation of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) in France, at the exhibition organized by Jean Cassou at the Musée national d'Art moderne, Le Cubisme 1907-1914 (January 30-April 9, 1953). That same year, the Italian Communist Party played a key role in planning a major exhibition in Rome and Milan; the initiative came from the communist senator Eugenio Reale. Picasso decided to loan only works he had produced between 1920 and 1953—a choice that left out the Blue and Rose periods and most of his Cubist masterpieces, but too broad in its scope to meet the taste of the French communists at the time. However, the event that the PCI viewed as an outstanding tool for propaganda was held at the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna before reappearing in Milan at the Palazzo Reale, where Guernica was also shown. The gallery's director Palma Bucarelli had to struggle to get the De Gasperi government to authorize the exhibition. Despite very tight deadlines (only two months for the entire organizational process), the exhibition opened and was acclaimed by the public and critics alike.[5]
[1] Pierre Daix, Dictionnaire Picasso, Robert Laffont, 1995, p. 745 (le portrait de Staline).
[2] Annette Wieworka, “Picasso et Staline,” Cahier de l’Herne Picasso, no. 106, 2014, p. 66.
[3] Pierre Daix, Dictionnaire Picasso, Robert Laffont, 1995, p. 377.
[4] Zoé Grumberg: “1953 : Le 5 mars, Joseph Staline est mort,” in 100 ans de parti communiste français, edited by Guillaume Roubaud-Quashie, Le Cherche-Midi Editeur, 2020, pp. 80-81.
[5] Brunella Velardi, “Eugenio Reale e le retrospettive di Picasso del 1953 a Roma e Milano,” unclosed.eu, October 2016.
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Summary