Bullfights, ballet and hot jazz: inside Picasso's scandalous theatre of sex and death

"She grinds her teeth on a handkerchief that's like a jagged white-and-blue spearhead while her fingers claw at her face, tearing the flesh to expose her skull. Her chin is two grenades, her eyes are filled with horror black silhouettes of planes are held in her transfixed eyeballs. They are the German bombers that attacked the Basque town Guernica on 26 April 1937. Picasso's Weeping Woman was bought from him by the British surrealist Roland Penrose in November 1937, fresh off the easel."

"Fifty years later, his son gave it in lieu of tax to the Tate Gallery. Now it is about to star in a Tate Modern exhibition that showcases the museum's Picasso collection, enhanced with terrific loans from the Musee Picasso in Paris. Weeping Woman is a hair-raising example of Picasso's feel for drama. Tate Modern's blockbuster, called Theatre Picasso, is staged rather than curated,"

"Picasso's theatre gave him the imaginative power to do what few other artists managed: make art that fought fascism He certainly loved a good show. Picasso's passion for drama included a spectacle that ended in real bloodshed bullfighting. The corridas fuelled some of his greatest art. Guernica evolved from visceral, densely compacted paintings he did in the 1930s of dying matadors, horses gored by bulls and the artist's alter ego, the man-bull Minotaur."

Picasso's Weeping Woman depicts a mutilated woman whose transfixed eyes contain black silhouettes of the German bombers that attacked Guernica on 26 April 1937. Roland Penrose bought the painting in November 1937; fifty years later Picasso's son gave it in lieu of tax to the Tate Gallery. Tate Modern is staging a Picasso exhibition called Theatre Picasso, organized by film artist Wu Tsang and writer Enrique Fuenteblanca, using cabaret and theatre-like spaces to create a rhythmic visitor experience. Picasso embraced drama and performance across media, from bullfighting-inspired paintings and Guernica to ballet collaborations including Parade in 1917 and work with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. His 1918 marriage to dancer Olga Khokhlova was disastrous.

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