Exhibition at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza from October 11, 2022 to January 15, 2023 Pablo Picasso and Gabrielle Chanel worked together twice, both with Jean Cocteau: on Antigone (1922) and on Le Train Bleu (1924) by Serge Diaghilev for his Ballets Russes. The artist and the fashion designer met in the spring of 1917, probably through Cocteau or Misia Sert, and Chanel established a close and lasting friendship with both, which they introduced her to the circle of Picasso. He was related to the artist and his wife at a time when he participated actively in Diaghilev39;s company. Chanel became closely associated with the Parisian artistic and intellectual world of the period, to the point of declaring that "it is the artists who have taught me to be demanding". Uniting art and fashion once again, the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza presents an exhibition that explores the relationship between these two geniuses of the creation of the 20th century. Structured in four main sections, it follows a chronological order that It covers roughly the decade between 1915 and 1925. The Chanel style and cubism reveals the influence of this artistic movement on Chanel39;s creations from its first and innovative designs: his use of a geometric formal language, the chromatic restraint and the cubist aesthetics of collage, expressed in garments with straight and angular lines; his preference for black, white and beige; and its use of fabrics cheap with austere textures. The second section, entitled Olga Picasso, focuses on the many beautiful portraits that Picasso made of his first wife, the Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova, who was one of Chanel39;s most loyal clients. Alongside these works are several ensembles from the designer39;s early days, of which few examples survive. Antigone, Cocteau39;s modern adaptation of Sophocles39; play, premiered in Paris in 1922 with sets and masks of Picasso and Chanel costumes, both inspired by classical Greece, as this section reveals. Le Train Bleu is the title of the fourth section and the ballet created by Diaghilev in 1924 with a setting by Cocteau, inspired by the Olympic Games, the jazz and silent movies. Two Women Running on the Beach (The Race), a small gouache Diaghilev found in the studio by Picasso, became the image on the front canvas of the work and the artist also accepted the commission to illustrate the Program. For her part, Chanel used her sportswear collection from that season for the dancers39; wardrobe.
