To mark the 50th anniversary of Picasso's death, the Musée du Luxembourg is staging a major exhibition on the story of the extraordinary friendship between two 20th-century icons, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) and Gertrude Stein (1874-1946).

Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), a Jewish American immigrant, writer, poet and aesthete, moved to Paris in 1903, shortly after the arrival of Picasso, then a young artist. Their position as foreigners and their marginality underpinned their membership of the Parisian bohemian scene and their artistic freedom. Their friendship crystallized around their respective work, which laid the foundations of Cubism and the 20th century's pictorial and literary avant-gardes. Their posterity is immense.

By examining their complicity and inventiveness, the Musée du Luxembourg exhibition takes us through a century of art, poetry, music and theater, through great figures such as Henri Matisse, Juan Gris, Marcel Duchamp, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Bruce Nauman, Carl Andre, Joseph Kosuth, Hanne Darboven, Glenn Ligon, John Cage, Bob Wilson, Gary Hill and Philip Glass.