Before Picasso became the iconic artist now celebrated as one of France’s leading figures, he was constantly surveilled by the police. In the Prix Femina 2021 book Picasso the Foreigner: An Artist in France 1900-1973, Picasso emerges as an artist ahead of his time not only aesthetically but politically, one who ignored national modes in favor of contemporary cosmopolitan forms. Dr. Annie Cohen-Solal reveals how, in a period encompassing the brutality of World War I, the Nazi occupation, and Cold War rivalries, Picasso strategized and fought to preserve his agency, eventually leaving Paris for good in 1955. Dr. Cohen-Solal is an award-winning writer, historian, cultural diplomat and global public intellectual. She holds multiple university positions, has curated a dozen shows, published 10 books, and continues avidly to research the interactions between art, literature and society with an intercultural twist.