In the year 1907, in his early reliefs and sculptural work - after the painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, which created shock waves - Picasso completed his break with realistic, illusionist art. In the Soviet Union, those artists who developed non- figurative art in the period from the revolution until Stalin came to power orientated themselves on Picasso's work, while he progressed from analytic towards synthetic Cubism. The artist found his themes in autobiography and in the horrors of his time, but also in daily life and later in art history - what always interested him in the process was the structures of the formal. This book focuses on Picasso as an innovator and conceptualist, showing paintings, sculptures, drawings and ceramics from all his work phases, from Cubism via abstraction to his late sculptures. It illuminates his innovative game with surfaces and lines. One chapter explores what he has in common with Marcel Duchamp who, like Picasso, had the ability to create new forms and to reveal unexpected links between the objects of reality.