Picasso and the War Years.

The first exhibition in the U.S. to examine the life and work of Pablo Picasso during the turbulent years 1937-45 focuses critical attention on the artist's response to the historical events leading from the Spanish Civil War through the Nazi occupation of France and its liberation by Allied troops. Picasso's artistic output from this period represents some of his most powerful imagery as well as his darkest commentary on the human condition.

Picasso made reference to the war through a variety of traditional themes and motifs, among them still life, portraiture, landscape, and the nude. Although the overall mood of his art from this period is occasionally relieved by hopeful and...