Just as it is announced that sales of Sichuan painter Zhang Daqian's works have overtaken those of Pablo Picasso, making the former the world's best-selling artist, Chengdu's new Museum of Contemporary Art welcomes a comprehensive exhibition of Pablo Picasso's creative life.

The RMB6.7 billion exhibit is said to be the most valuable exhibition ever held in Chengdu. Featuring 56 works including oil on canvas, bronze statues, and wood prints, the exhibit spans the major periods of the artist's creative life, starting at age 14 with "Girl with Bare Feet" and continuing through the blue period, the red period, cubism, and neo-classicism to his very last self-portrait, "Dimance," in 1971. The works are accompanied by 50 black-and-white photos from different stages of Picasso's life; accompanying texts are in Chinese only (with the exception of placards, which are also in English and French).

Co-organized by the French Ministry of Culture & Communication and the Musée Picasso in Paris, the exhibition stopped in Taipei and Shanghai before arriving in Chengdu. It is the smaller of two world tours of Picasso's art while its permanent home, the Musée Picasso in Paris, is under reconstruction.

The exhibit includes some of Picasso's most well-known pieces, such as "Woman in Red Chair," but others—"Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" (on display in Shanghai) —have been left out of the collection.

If the RMB160 to see one of the West's most celebrated artists of the 20th century is off-putting, you can always hop over to the Sichuan Provinicial Museum to view the floor dedicated to "the greatest artist of the East," Zhang Daqian, for free.

Chengdu Museum of Contemporary Art
成都当代美术馆
Tianfu Software Park Bldg C1
成都天府大道天府软件园C1楼

Date & Time: Through May 1, 2012 (closed on Mondays), 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Tickets: RMB100/160/320/360 (students/adults/family pass [two adults and one child under 1.5m]/VIP)
How to get there: Taxi RMB25-35 (from Chengdu's South) or Subway line 1 till final Station Exhibtion center from there you can take bus No.5 or 501 towards Huayang or just walk the last 1.5km South

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