The Four Little Girls and Desire Caught by the Tail

Picasso’s Surreal Stage: Desire and The Four Little Girls

In the 1940s, Picasso penned two plays in French: Desire Caught by the Tail, a wartime creation conceived during the German occupation of Paris, populated by grotesque allegorical characters like the Onion, Silence, and Fat Anxiety, grappling with hunger, cold, and love.

Years later, on the French Riviera, he wrote The Four Little Girls, a stream-of-consciousness exploration revealing a surprisingly …