Since September 18, 2026, Pablo Picasso and Francis Bacon have been displayed side by side at the Albertina in Vienna, in an exhibition running until January 31, 2027. The idea is simple and unsettling: two painters who both turned the human body into a field of pain, desire, and vulnerability, with the younger one acknowledging that the older inspired him to start painting. If you're considering a Picasso poster, the exhibition is a reminder that his figures were never just decorative. They carry a tension that Bacon picked up, distorted, and carried forward, making a single image linger in your mind long after you leave the room.
Quick facts: Albertina, Albertinaplatz 1 in Vienna, is showing Picasso and Bacon from September 18, 2026 to January 31, 2027, with around 70 works. The guest curator is Michael Peppiatt. Tickets cost 20.90 euros for adults, children under 19 enter free, and the museum is open until 9 p.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays. One of the works is Picasso's Mutter und Kind, a study for Guernica from 1937, on loan from the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid.
Paris 1927: the teenager who saw Picasso and decided to become a painter
The story of Bacon and Picasso begins at a gallery door. In 1927, seventeen-year-old Francis Bacon saw a Picasso exhibition at Paul Rosenberg's in Paris. According to those who manage Bacon's legacy, this was the moment he began thinking about becoming a painter himself, although it would be several years before he actually did. Albertina's exhibition text puts it plainly: it was under Picasso's influence that Bacon decided to paint.
It is an unusual relationship in art history. Picasso, born in 1881 and died in 1973, was never influenced by Bacon himself, but according to the exhibition, he followed his career with interest. Bacon, born in 1909 and died in 1992, saw Picasso as both a threat and an asset. His earliest surviving painting with a clear connection is Crucifixion from 1933, which draws its forms from Picasso's bathing figures painted in Cannes and Dinard from 1927 to 1932. Bacon himself described how he was fascinated by the fact that these figures felt deeply non-illustrative.
For those who want to learn more about the artist behind the origins, our Pablo Picasso posters guide explains how his periods shifted. This article instead focuses on the encounter with Bacon and what it means for how you choose and hang a Picasso poster.
What's on display in Vienna: around 70 works about crying, screaming, and bullfighting
The exhibition is titled "Picasso – Bacon: What It Feels Like to Be Human." Around 70 key works from international museums and private collections are brought together. The Albertina highlights themes such as crucifixions, screams, bullfighting, naked bodies, and what the exhibition calls "Tears of Eros," meaning the tears of desire. It is not a gentle selection, and that is intentional.
The guest curator is Michael Peppiatt, who has written about Bacon for decades and was tasked with letting the two artists speak to each other across generations. One of the works mentioned is Picasso’s Mother and Child (Study for Guernica) from 1937, on loan from the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, the museum where Guernica itself hangs. The study shows how Picasso already let war and grief shape the body while preparing his best-known work, and it is one of the works that makes the connection to Bacon’s distorted figures understandable.
"Picasso broke the body apart to show it from every angle; Bacon twisted it to show what it costs to live in."
From bathers to 1944: how forms traveled between the two painters
The exhibition’s common thread is a demonstrable kinship between forms. When Bacon returned to painting after a break between 1937 and 1943, during which he reportedly struggled to free himself from Picasso’s dominance, he created Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion in 1944. The canvas features biomorphic figures with elongated tubular necks and swelling bodies, and the kinship with Picasso’s Figures at the Seaside from 1931 is clear to anyone familiar with both.
After 1944, Picasso’s direct influence waned as Bacon developed his own, more painterly style. But the references lingered throughout his career. In Three Studies of Isabel Rawsthorne from 1967, Bacon returns to Picasso’s motif of the key in the door, a small detail showing that an artist can carry another with them for almost forty years.
This is where the exhibition becomes useful for anyone buying a poster. It shows that an image from the 1930s can live on and change in someone else’s hands, and that a subject doesn’t have to be beautiful to be good to live with. We describe research into why movement and bodies in still images affect us so strongly in our article on mirror neurons and embodied simulation.
Fragmentation versus distortion: two ways to make a body visible
The Albertina's description of Picasso as representing fragmentation and Bacon distortion is a useful key. Picasso divides the body into planes and reassembles them, so you see a profile and a frontal face at the same time. It's an intellectual operation: the image says that reality has many sides. Bacon does the opposite, keeping the body intact but pressing it out of shape, often in narrow, almost claustrophobic spaces, as the Albertina describes it. It's a physical operation: the image says that it hurts to be someone.
The difference matters for interior design. Picasso's Cubist and late-period figures are fundamentally rhythmic and can easily coexist on a wall with other things. Bacon's subjects command all the attention. That's why Picasso is the natural choice for a living room or dining area, while Bacon's style, if you want it at all, calls for more thought in a room where you decide who gets to look. We've written about how the brain responds to soft and hard shapes in rounded shapes or sharp angles, and it's a useful backdrop to the question of how powerful subjects work in everyday life.
Putting two artists side by side is an approach that relies on the viewer finding the connections for themselves. You don't need to know art history to see them: a curved neck in Picasso reappears as an elongated neck in Bacon; an open-mouthed scream echoes between two canvases made almost ten years apart. The same principle works on a small scale at home. Two pictures that share a shape, a color, or a feeling start speaking to each other as soon as they hang within the same field of view, even if they were made by entirely different hands.
Picasso on your wall after Vienna: subjects, formats, and frames
In Bozetto's selection, you'll find Picasso posters from several periods, as well as a wider selection of artworks by famous artists if you'd like to pair him with other modernists. Francis Bacon isn't in our selection, but the idea in Vienna that the figure is a way of speaking about humanity can be applied to other subjects.
Mother-and-child motifs and line drawings
The Mutter und Kind study in Vienna is a reminder of how often Picasso returned to the mother and child, from the serene figures of the Rose and Blue Periods to the late, almost laughing drawings. A motif in this vein works well in the hallway, bedroom or parents' corner of a child's room, in 30x40 cm or 50x70 cm. A simple black line drawing on white brings a sense of calm and suits a slim wooden frame.
Black and white as common ground
Some of Picasso's and Bacon's most powerful works can be translated into black and white without losing their impact. Our black-and-white posters are a great place to start if you want drama without relying on color. Hang two or three pictures in the same tonal range and the result is a small exhibition of your own, with you as the curator, built around the same idea of dialogue as the Albertina.
Room by room: where Picasso belongs
In the living room, Picasso can handle large formats. A 70x100 cm poster above the sofa creates a clear focal point, and figurative motifs with strong outlines can be seen from across the room. In the hallway, 30x40 cm or 40x50 cm is enough, since you pass the picture at close range and have time to notice the details. Simple line drawings work best in a home office, offering the eyes a rest between hours in front of a screen without drawing your attention away from work. In the bedroom, soft, serene figures are preferable to dramatic faces, so the picture is the last thing you see at night and doesn't disturb your sleep.
Tip: Hanging several pictures with the same theme? Keep the frame color and mat the same, but vary the sizes. One 50x70 cm in the middle and two 30x40 cm on the sides create rhythm without making the room feel cluttered. Leave at least five centimeters of space between the frames.
Moderna Museet and Vienna: a Swedish connection to Picasso
You don't need to go to Vienna to meet Picasso this fall. Moderna Museet in Stockholm hosted the Late Picasso exhibition until April 5, 2026. It opened on November 22, 2025. The exhibition focused on Picasso's final years, when he painted faster, more directly and with greater freedom. If you missed it, a poster at home can be a way to hold on to something of the experience.
If you’re planning a trip to Vienna, the museum is open daily from 10 to 18, and until 21 on Wednesdays and Fridays, so you can combine your visit with a late dinner. More information is available on the Albertina website, and you can find good background on the relationship between the artists at the Francis Bacon archive.
Frequently asked questions about Picasso and Bacon at the Albertina
Want to bring home a little piece of Vienna without going there? Start with our Picasso posters or browse our abstract posters, where the shapes speak louder than the subject. Choose an image you’ll want to look at every day, not just one that looks good for the first week.