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Sublimating the height of Picasso’s Surrealist period, a collection of candles and a new exhibition in Paris curated by Diana W. Picasso unveil an unlikely exploration of fragrance, femininity and mycology. Inspired by her mother Maya Ruiz-Picasso, who passed away on December 20th, 2022, Diana’s latest curatorial exercise at the Musée Picasso Paris explores the life and times of Pablo through the lens of his eldest daughter, her impact on his life and her collection of his work.

Accompanying the show, a series of 4 perfumed candles by AMEN features lesser-known paintings and drawings by the artist from the 1920s and 30s, and inspirations from his love letters to Diana’s grandmother Marie-Thérèse Walter and the scents that surrounded his studio in Antibes, France.

‘You are always on me, MT, mother of sparkling perfumes pungent with star jasmines’ wrote Pablo to his secret muse, in a quote that inspired the jasmine-scented candle wrapped with a reproduction of Guitare à la Main Blanche from 1927, where the initials ‘MT’ are clearly present as a graphic device. Three other scents — ginger, orange and amber — are associated with equally intimate artworks, from the contorted abstraction of the 1932 Acrobate in white relief against grey, to a barely discernable pencil sketch of a reclining nude (the former paired with ginger, the latter, amber).

The peculiarity of AMEN candles, and a design feature that seduced Ms. Picasso instantaneously, is their rejection of traditional packaging and all plastics in favour of a unique protective shell moulded from carbon negative mushroom waste. “In his 50.000 piece oeuvre, Pablo never used plastic as a medium,” said Diana, “Even though he experimented with every material and plastic was a new trendy material in the art world.”

Discover the collection at the Musée Picasso Paris and online at Gagosian Shop.