Author: Hugh Eakin

A riveting story of how dueling ambitions and the power of prodigy made America the cultural center of the world — and made Pablo Picasso the most famous artist in the shadow of World War II.

In January 1939, Picasso was renowned in Europe but disdained by many in the US. One year later, Americans across the country were clamoring to see his art.

It would take Hitler’s campaign against Jews and modern art to get his most important paintings out of Europe and organized in the shadow of war, the groundbreaking exhibition Picasso: Forty Years of His Art would define New York’s new Museum of Modern Art as we know it, and shift the focus of the art world from Paris to New York.

Picasso’s War is the story of how a single exhibition, a decade in the making, irrevocably changed American taste and in doing so saved dozens of Picasso’s artworks from the Nazis.