A stage of reinforced concrete: Picasso’s mural for the UNESCO

In 1957-1958 Pablo Picasso realized the largest and highest-profile work of his whole career: a mural commissioned for the newly built headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris, a painting that came to be known as "La Chute d’Icare". Given its monumental scale, the final composition was the result of a labored conception and execution that took place behind closed doors at the artist’s residence in Cannes, villa La Californie. This essay aims to reevaluate "La Chute d’Icare", which was heavily criticized at the time for its seemingly careless stylistic features, by focusing on the relationship with its brutalist architectural setting, seen as a productive dialogue rather than a failed integration. Analyzing how this commission unfolded through previously unpublished archival materials, this essay also sheds new light on Picasso’s creative process and his approach towards working on commission. The numerous extant preparatory drawings, some of which are taken into consideration, allow us to follow the evolution of the iconography from the indoor space of the artist’s atelier, the point of departure, to the outdoor setting of the beach visible in the finished mural. Testing key issues such as the dialogue between painting and sculpture and the form to be taken by mural painting in the post–World War II era, the UNESCO commission presented Picasso with unexpected challenges.