Where Pablo Picasso lived and worked from 1918 with Olga Khokhlova — the apartment in the gallery district that marks his arrival into wealth, with a cook, a chauffeur, a chambermaid and a nurse, and his dealer Paul Rosenberg two doors along.
Pablo Picasso married Olga Khokhlova, a dancer with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, on 12 July 1918 at the Russian Orthodox church on the rue Daru. The witnesses were Jean Cocteau, Max Jacob and Guillaume Apollinaire — the whole of his Montmartre life standing up at a society wedding.
The couple moved to 23 rue La Boétie, and the museum's own account of what followed is unambiguous: this is where notoriety, social engagements and luxury entered his daily life. He kept a cook, a chauffeur, a chambermaid, and soon a nurse — their son Paulo was born on 4 February 1921.
Look at the sequence this address completes. Eighteen years earlier he had a first studio on the rue Gabrielle; then five years in the Bateau-Lavoir with one tap and no gas; then a comfortable flat on the boulevard de Clichy once the work started selling. This is the end of that climb — the eighth arrondissement, with staff.
The street was chosen. Paul Rosenberg's gallery stood at 21 rue La Boétie, two doors away, and from 1918 to 1940 Rosenberg held an exclusive contract with Picasso; the two families were neighbours for years. Rosenberg also handled Georges Braque and Marie Laurencin. Living beside your dealer in the gallery district is not an accident of house-hunting — it is a career decision made visible as an address.
The arrangement ended with the war. Rosenberg, who was Jewish, fled to the United States in 1940 and reopened there; his Paris gallery was seized.
The building is private and unmarked, and it is worth walking past precisely because it looks like nothing — a respectable block in a respectable quarter, which is exactly the point of it.
Picasso meets Olga Khokhlova in Rome while designing sets and costumes for the ballet Parade.
They marry at the Russian Orthodox church on the rue Daru, with Cocteau, Max Jacob and Apollinaire as witnesses.
The couple move to 23 rue La Boétie; Paul Rosenberg's gallery is at number 21.
Their son Paulo is born.
Rosenberg holds an exclusive contract with Picasso; the families are neighbours.
Rosenberg flees to the United States and reopens his gallery there.
At 23 rue La Boétie in the 8th arrondissement, from 1918, with Olga Khokhlova. It is the address where, in the Musée Picasso's own words, notoriety, social engagements and luxury entered his daily life — a household with a cook, chauffeur, chambermaid and nurse.
His dealer was on it. Paul Rosenberg's gallery stood at number 21, two doors away, and from 1918 to 1940 Rosenberg held an exclusive contract with Picasso. The two families were neighbours for years. Living beside your dealer in the gallery district is a career decision made visible as an address.
A dancer with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Picasso met her in Rome in spring 1917 while designing the sets and costumes for the ballet Parade, and they married on 12 July 1918 at the Russian Orthodox church on the rue Daru — with Cocteau, Max Jacob and Apollinaire as witnesses. Their son Paulo was born in 1921.
It completes a climb. A first studio on the rue Gabrielle in 1900, five years in the Bateau-Lavoir with one tap and no gas, a comfortable flat on the boulevard de Clichy once the work sold, and then this — the eighth arrondissement, with staff, next door to his dealer.
Picasso and Olga Khokhlova moved here after marrying in July 1918. The Musée Picasso records it as the address where notoriety, social engagements and luxury entered his daily life — a household with a cook, chauffeur, chambermaid and nurse. His dealer Paul Rosenberg's gallery stood two doors away at number 21, and held an exclusive contract with him from 1918 to 1940.
The beauty shop Colette opened in 1932, selling cosmetics she made herself — her attempt to turn her fame into a business.
Visit the placeThe flat where Marcel Proust wrote most of In Search of Lost Time, in a bedroom he had lined with cork to keep the noise of the boulevard out. He moved in on 27 December 1906, after his parents' deaths, and stayed thirteen years. The room itself is now reassembled at the Musée Carnavalet.
Visit the place
The surviving mansion that housed the American Library in Paris from 1920 to 1936—a center of transatlantic reading and literary life where Langston Hughes unsuccessfully asked for work.
Visit the place
The bar-cabaret Louis Moysès opened in 1922, named for the Cocteau–Milhaud ballet — headquarters of the postwar avant-garde around Jean Cocteau, and one of Blaise Cendrars's regular Paris stops.
Visit the placeThe Friday Letter
The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.
