WOMAN AS MUSE: A 1946 portrait of the artist's Mistress Francoise Gilot, titled Portrait of Francoise

It's much bigger than a head of state entering a country" is how one French official described the 122-work strong Picasso show on the second floor of the National Museum in Delhi. "They come and go. Picasso endures." French President Jacques Chirac, by that logic a more temporal dignitary in the annals of recognition, was nonetheless instrumental in getting the Spanish-born master to India when he came visiting three years ago. His counterpart K.R. Narayanan, on a reciprocal visit in 2000, cemented the deal. In fact, from an early age, Picasso was well aware of his larger-than-head-of-state stature and once, in his perfectly normal self-congratulatory state, remarked, "I wanted to be a painter and I became Picasso."

PASSAGE TO INDIA

Priceless Pride Over two lakh visitors are expected to see the show The walls of the National Museum have not hung anything of this scale. The last time the museum got world attention was during the display of Nizams' Jewels a few months ago. Picasso is bigger, says National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) Director Rajeev Lochan. The firsts are in the numbers and priceless character of Picasso's "Metamorphoses" retrospective. It's the first time that such a comprehensive show is coming to India. Over two lakh visitors are expected to view the two shows-December 14-January 31 in Delhi and February 15-March 31 at NGMA, Mumbai. BOUND VOLUME: Bernadac (centre) packs a Picasso ceramic Ever since Picasso arrived from France-on three Air France flights last week in insulated, foam-stuffed boxes weighing a total of six tonnes-neither the French Embassy officials in Delhi nor the Union Culture Department mandarins have breathed easy. "He's our best," says Thierry Audric, cultural counsellor with the embassy. Displayed in three temperature-controlled halls on the second floor of the museum, metal detectors and surveillance cameras peek from vantage points. But why didn't it go to the NGMA? Defends Laurent de Gaulle, French cultural attache: "The National Museum had space. In terms of security, we figured it wouldn't be easy to display the works at the NGMA." Nobody's telling the worth of the "priceless collection", but an embassy official says it has been "insured in France for an astronomical sum". Perhaps to lend it a contemporary feel, the hosts are even planning Picasso fashion shows, food festivals and seminars. Barista has set up a French cafe. For the sterile corridors of the museum, this is a first. Here's another: Culture Minister Jagmohan has ruled out complimentary passes. Students pay Rs 20 (10-11 a.m.), Indians pay Rs 50 and foreigners (the French included) pay Rs 200. The 224-page catalogue is for Rs 950. Will the "pedestal-free genius", as Picasso's writer-friend Michel Leiris called him, be the start of a new Indo-French dialogue? "The show will convey a beautiful message," says de Gaulle. Maybe it has. As a reciprocal gesture, the Indian Government is sending a collection of sculptures from the Gupta period to France in 2003. -Methil Renuka

"Metamorphoses", the first ever solo show of the artist's work in this part of the world (China has never had one, nor has Pakistan) has paintings, drawings, engravings, sculptures and, uniquely, a couple of his poems and witticisms, quite similar to the one above. Another example: "You expect me to tell you what is art? If I knew, I would keep the knowledge to myself." He must have been lying, regarding the first part that is. The collection, a mini-retrospective, has been taken from 15 museums in France, mostly from the Musee de Picasso in Paris, a grand 17th century mansion, restructured at a cost of over £3 million in 1985 and which now possesses the largest number of Picassos anywhere. The curator at the museum, Marie-Laure Bernadac, a specialist in Surrealism and Picasso's pithy poetry, is also the curator of the current show and was included in the loop a year ago.

But a phase-by-phase retrospective wasn't what Bernadac originally had in mind-she was thinking more about Picasso's erotic works, with particular emphasis on his treatment of the lusty Minotaur whom she thought Indian audiences would identify with. Picasso, as has been well-documented, was an irrepressibly sexual man, seeking the company of woman who in turn patterned his pictorial development. Unfortunately (for Indian audiences), most of the important works were already travelling in shows abroad or booked to go. Later when Saryu Doshi, honorary director of the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, and co-curator of the show (even though Doshi's background is in Jain iconography), came to Paris, it was decided to have a much more manageable retrospective stretching from 1900 to 1972. Yes, Doshi did have a hand in the selection-she would ask Bernadac if a particular work could be included and the French curator would say she would try.

"It was important that a new eye was involved in the process," says Bernadac, a veteran of more than 12 international Picasso shows. The hotlist?

There are examples from each aesthetic stage, beginning from the mushy Blue and Rose periods continuing with the more analytical composure of Cubism and Post-Cubism, the simplistic Neo-Classicism to the freer Surrealism of his last years. Throughout these stages Picasso appropriated, borrowed, copied, duplicated, challenged, provoked, mimicked, caricatured continuously, never slumbering into creative apoplexy and forever attempting to disrupt the traditional canons of western art.

AESTHETIC STAGES: ( from above to below) Cat and Cock (1953), Olga with Fur Collar (1923) and Nude Youth (1906)

From the early phase, there is The Portrait Of A Man (1903), a bearded man looking vacuously in the distance, a sturdy Nude Youth (1906) with a tubular penis and a couple of still lives that brazenly betrays the influence of Cezanne, Cubism's bona fide forebearer.

Bernadac admits that this selection of Picasso paintings is not the best because a lot of the works she had asked for were refused by various museums, which she says have in any case become niggardly lenders. A particular regret is not being able to bring The Portrait of Dora Maar (of a Yugoslav photographer who became Picasso's companion in the 1930s), in many ways a forerunner of Guernica and a flagship work of the Musee de Picasso. The show does have a compensatory portrait of Maar and another one of his second 1930s lover, Marie-Therese.

What the paintings selection lacks, the drawings hope to make up. The collection has 34 drawings and 19 engravings, including a study for the classic Weeping Woman as well two poems-On a back of a huge slice of fiery melon (1935) and The horse's head (1936). Among the nine token sculptures is a burlesque goat of 1940 and bull's head with its horns looking like they have been chopped off a steering wheel. But don't try and figure out what all this stands for-Picasso always scorned the over-perusal of a work. "Those who always set out to explain a picture usually go wrong," he said. "A short time ago Gertrude Stein elatedly informed me that at last she understood what my picture The Three Musicians represented. It was a still life!" Of course, the critics have politely gone on with their business.

FOREVER CREATIVE: Nude in Turkish Hat (1955) (above) and Man in Straw Hat (1971) (below)

Picasso's exalted itinerant status meant additional hard work-insurance, loans, air-conditioned trucks, paramilitary troopers as escorts, exclusive cargo and the special packaging. Christian Duprey and Richard Pawlicki from the Andre Chenue packaging company have packed over 2,000 Picassos between them for 25 years. It was back to the old grind. Paintings, after repeated paddings with felt, foam and bubble paper, were slotted into individual crates that are repadded and put into another crate. The double crate dictum is unique and has ensured a chipless passage for masterpieces over the years. Picasso's ceramics, produced at Vallauris between 1948 and 1963 and of which 10 find their way to India, were buffered by the gloved packers in sponges and snug grooves at a storeroom in Musee National de Ceramique in suburban Paris. The duo swear that they haven't dropped any, though their deceptively perfunctory routine suggests that they might not be far. None of them are particularly interested in art or wander around museums on holidays. Guess they don't need to.

There's a faux Parisian brasserie recreated at the National Museum with umbrellas and plastic-knit chairs, though the vegetable burgers and sabzi-patties act as Delhi substitutes for the holy trinity of chocolate crepes, ham in baguettes and Cotes de Rhone. A souvenir shop, a necessary adjunct to any major exhibition in the West, is selling mugs, T-shirts, pens, bookmarks, postcards, calendars and even fridge magnets specially brought from Paris. Picasso, as only he can, is changing museum culture in India. How about following up with Matisse?