The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts opened Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musee National Picasso, Paris, an exhibition drawn from the artist's personal collection in the Paris museum while that institution was under renovation. The exhibition ran from February 19 to May 15, 2011 and occupied ten galleries in VMFA's newly renovated building. VMFA was one of only seven museums worldwide selected for the tour, and the Richmond presentation included 176 paintings spanning Picasso's career. Director Alex Nyerges emphasized the rarity of seeing such a concentrated group of works from the artist's own holdings, framing it as a survey of one of the twentieth century's most influential figures rather than a conventional loan show assembled from many collections.
The exhibition extended the Musee Picasso renovation tour to a major American regional museum and broadened public access to Picasso's retained works.
