Published to accompany a major exhibition at M+, Hong Kong, this catalogue places more than sixty Picasso masterpieces alongside works by Asian and Asian-diasporic artists selected from the M+ collections.

Why is Pablo Picasso so famous the world over? How does Picasso, the quintessential modern artist of the 20th century but also undeniably a European, relate to the work of contemporary artists in other parts of the world, such as Asia? And what do Picasso and his legacy mean in an age and a place that are far from his own? These are some of the fundamental questions explored by this book, which accompanies a major exhibition at M+, Hong Kong, and the Musée National Picasso-Paris.

At its heart are two intertwined narratives. First, Picasso’s life and artistic practice are interpreted through the four archetypes of the creative genius, the outsider looking in, the consummate magician and the endlessly inquisitive student of art history. Secondly, the fresh interpretation of Picasso’s oeuvre is placed ‘in conversation’ with the works of Asian artists, thereby revealing what Picasso’s art can tell us about artistic practice today, and vice versa. A visual timeline shows how Asian art and artists migrated to Europe during Picasso’s lifetime and became an unavoidable part of his cultural context and milieu while also describing Picasso’s reception in Asia from the 1910s up to the end of the 20th century.

A bold exploration of complex relationships between origin and reception, invention and adaptation, and West and East, this book enriches the discourse on transnational contemporary Asian art and visual culture, while contributing to the growing critical literature on global art history.