The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series:
Picasso for Asia—A Conversation
The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series:
Picasso for Asia—A Conversation
13 Jul 2025
This exhibition adopts a new and unique perspective to interpret the legacy of Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973). More than 60 masterpieces by Picasso will be on loan from Musée national Picasso-Paris (MnPP), which holds the largest and most significant repository of Picasso’s works in the world. They will be placed in conversation with around 130 pieces from the M+ Collections by 30 Asian and Asian-diasporic artists from the early twentieth century to the present.
Co-organised by M+ and MnPP, co-presented with the French May Arts Festival as the opening programme of the French May Arts Festival 2025, and supported by the Title Sponsor, The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Picasso for Asia—A Conversation is the first major exhibition of Picasso in Hong Kong in more than a decade. It proposes an unprecedented cross-cultural and intergenerational dialogue between the twentieth-century European master and contemporary Asian artists.
Visitors viewing The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Picasso for Asia—A Conversation at M+, 2025. Photo: Winnie Yeung @ Visual Voices © M+, Hong Kong
Visitors viewing The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Picasso for Asia—A Conversation at M+, 2025. Photo: Winnie Yeung @ Visual Voices © M+, Hong Kong
Installation view of The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Picasso for Asia—A Conversation, 2025. © Visite à Picasso, a film directed by Paul Haesaerts, Production Art et Cinema, Copyright Eyeworks Film & Tv Drama. Photo: Lok Cheng © M+, Hong Kong
Installation view of The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Picasso for Asia—A Conversation, 2025. Photo: Lok Cheng © M+, Hong Kong
Installation view of The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Picasso for Asia—A Conversation, 2025. Photo: Lok Cheng © M+, Hong Kong
Installation view of The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Picasso for Asia—A Conversation, 2025. Photo: Wilson Lam © M+, Hong Kong
Installation view of The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Picasso for Asia—A Conversation, 2025. Photo: Wilson Lam © M+, Hong Kong
Installation view of The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Picasso for Asia—A Conversation, 2025. Photo: Lok Cheng © M+, Hong Kong
Installation view of The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Picasso for Asia—A Conversation, 2025. Photo: Lok Cheng © M+, Hong Kong
Installation view of The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Picasso for Asia—A Conversation, 2025. Photo: Wilson Lam © M+, Hong Kong
Installation view of The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Picasso for Asia—A Conversation, 2025. Photo: Lok Cheng © M+, Hong Kong
Major works on view include The Acrobat (1930), Figures by the Sea (1931), Large Still Life with Pedestal Table (1931), Portrait of Dora Maar (1937), and Massacre in Korea (1951) from MnPP’s collection. They are accompanied by works from the M+ Collections by artists such as Isamu Noguchi, Luis Chan, Gu Dexin, Nalini Malani, Tanaami Keiichi, and Haegue Yang, as well as new commissions by Simon Fujiwara and Sin Wai Kin.
Selected Works by Picasso
Pablo Picasso. Blind Minotaur Guided through a Starry Night by Marie-Thérèse with a Pigeon (Vollard Suite), 1934–1935. Aquatint and drypoint. Musée national Picasso-Paris . © Succession Picasso 2025. Image: © GrandPalaisRmn (Musée national Picasso-Paris) / Mathieu Rabeau
Pablo Picasso. Horse Head. Sketch for Guernica, 1937. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid. Legado Picasso, 1981. © Succession Picasso 2025. Image courtesy of Album/Scala, Florence
Pablo Picasso. Portrait of a Man, 1902–1903. Oil on canvas. Musée national Picasso-Paris. © Succession Picasso 2025. Image: © GrandPalaisRmn (Musée national Picasso-Paris) / Mathieu Rabeau
Pablo Picasso. Sacré-Cœur, 1909–1910. Oil on canvas. Musée national Picasso-Paris. © Succession Picasso 2025. Image: © GrandPalaisRmn (Musée national Picasso-Paris) / Mathieu Rabeau
Pablo Picasso. Dead Birds, 1912. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid. Legado Douglas, 1995. © Succession Picasso 2025. Image courtesy of Photographic Archives Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia
Pablo Picasso. The Acrobat, 1930. Oil on canvas. Musée national Picasso-Paris. © Succession Picasso 2025. Image: © GrandPalaisRmn (Musée national Picasso-Paris) / Adrien Didierjean
Pablo Picasso. Figures by the Sea, 1931. Oil on canvas. Musée national Picasso-Paris. © Succession Picasso 2025. Image: © GrandPalaisRmn (Musée national Picasso-Paris) / Mathieu Rabeau
Pablo Picasso. Portrait of Dora Maar, 1937. Oil on canvas. Musée national Picasso-Paris. © Succession Picasso 2025. Image: © GrandPalaisRmn (Musée national Picasso-Paris) / Mathieu Rabeau
Pablo Picasso. Large Still Life with Pedestal Table, 1931. Oil on canvas. Musée national Picasso-Paris. © Succession Picasso 2025. Image: © GrandPalaisRmn (Musée national Picasso-Paris) / Adrien Didierjean
Pablo Picasso. Goat Skull, Bottle and Candle, 1951–1953. Painted bronze. Musée national Picasso-Paris. © Succession Picasso 2025. Image: © GrandPalaisRmn (Musée national Picasso-Paris) / Mathieu Rabeau
Pablo Picasso. Still Life with Bull’s Head, 1958. Oil on canvas. Musée national Picasso-Paris. © Succession Picasso 2025. Image: © GrandPalaisRmn (Musée national Picasso-Paris) / Mathieu Rabeau
Pablo Picasso. Massacre in Korea, 1951. Oil on plywood. Musée national Picasso-Paris. © Succession Picasso 2025. Image: © GrandPalaisRmn (Musée national Picasso-Paris) / Mathieu Rabeau
Selected Works by Contemporary Artists
Wifredo Lam. Woman with a Bird, 1949. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of Cynthia Hang. © Wifredo Lam / ADAGP, Paris – SACK, Seoul, 2025. Image: © 2025 Sotheby's
Madokoro (Akutagawa) Saori. God of Spring, 1954. Dyed linen. © Saori Akutagawa
Courtesy of NUKAGA GALLERY. Photo: M+, Hong Kong
Tanaami Keiichi. Pleasure of Picasso—Mother and Child No.118, 2020/21. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of NANZUKA. Acquisition in progress. © Keiichi Tanaami. Image courtesy of NANZUKA
Tanaami Keiichi. Pleasure of Picasso—Mother and Child No.667, 2023. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of NANZUKA. Acquisition in progress. © Keiichi Tanaami. Image courtesy of NANZUKA
Luis Chan. Cubist Sea Shore, 1959. Oil on board. Courtesy of Luis Trust. Acquisition in progress. © Luis Trust. Image courtesy of Hanart TZ Gallery
Luis Chan. Joy of Life, 1969. Acrylic on paper. Courtesy of Luis Trust. Acquisition in progress. © Luis Trust. Image courtesy of Hanart TZ Gallery
Isamu Noguchi. Strange Bird, 1945/1971. Brushed bronze. M+, Hong Kong. © The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York / ARS. Photo: Dan Leung, M+, Hong Kong
Feng Guodong. Body, 1978. Oil on canvas. M+, Hong Kong. © Feng Xi. Photo: M+, Hong Kong
Gu Dexin. Untitled, 1980s. Watercolour on paper. M+, Hong Kong. © Gu Dexin. Photo: M+, Hong Kong
Cai Guo-Qiang. Gunpowder Drawing No. 8-A5, 1988. Gunpowder and acrylic on canvas. M+, Hong Kong. © Cai Guo-Qiang. Photo: M+, Hong Kong
Simon Fujiwara. Who vs Who vs Who? (A Picture of a Massacre), 2024. Acrylic, charcoal, and pastel on canvas. Courtesy of Esther Schipper. Acquisition by commission in progress. Photo: © Ludger Paffrath. Image courtesy of Esther Schipper
Further Reading
Exhibition Monograph
Essays by François Dareau and Doryun Chong explore Picasso’s larger-than-life reputation as well as how his art was received, adapted, and critiqued across the region. These texts are accompanied by an extensive visual chronology that details Picasso’s interactions with Asia and its cultures from the 1910s to the end of the twentieth century.
This book is published in conjunction with the exhibition The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Picasso for Asia—A Conversation.
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Jockey Club Community Outreach and Arts Education Programmes: Family Drop-in—Picasso’s Paintbrush
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Title Sponsor
Project Grant
The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Picasso for Asia—A Conversation is co-curated by Doryun Chong, Artistic Director, Curatorial, and Chief Curator, M+, and François Dareau, Research Fellow, Musée national Picasso-Paris, supported by Hester Chan, Curator, Collections, M+.
Image at top: Pablo Picasso. Massacre in Korea, 1951. Oil on plywood. Musée national Picasso-Paris. © Succession Picasso 2025. Image: © GrandPalaisRmn (Musée national Picasso-Paris) / Mathieu Rabeau
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