Home>Michal Sobanski, a PhD researcher at the Centre for History, has been awarded the first PhD fellowship from the Musée national Picasso-Paris
17 March 2026
Michal Sobanski, a PhD researcher at the Centre for History, has been awarded the first PhD fellowship from the Musée national Picasso-Paris
Michal Sobanski, a PhD researcher at the Centre for History at Sciences Po, is the first recipient of the doctoral fellowship launched by the Musée national Picasso-Paris.
This pioneering funding initiative was developed by the museum in collaboration with the Almine and Bernard Ruiz-Picasso Foundation (FABA) and the Museo Picasso Málaga. Its aim is to support critical research into the work of the modern artist Pablo Picasso.
The launch of this fellowship comes at a significant moment in the museum’s development, marked by the opening of the Picasso Study Centre in 2025. Attached to the museum, this research centre is dedicated to studying and promoting the archives of the Musée national Picasso-Paris, whilst welcoming researchers wishing to work on Picasso’s oeuvre.
« Michal also receives academic guidance and regular feedback on the progress of his research. He is fully integrated into the life of the Centre for Studies: he was able to take part in the annual conference for young researchers held there in September and attend academic events (lectures, seminars, etc.) organised by the centre. He is also contributing to one of the CEP’s research projects, “History of Exhibitions”, which aims to identify all exhibitions of works by Pablo Picasso (with a particular focus on the period 1900–1930). »
Adèle ZWILLING
Research Programme Coordinator
Under these terms, the fellowship recipient joins the museum’s team as a research associate for the duration of their PhD, i.e. three years.
« The opportunity to carry out this research project under the auspices of the partner institutions is an extraordinary chance to study this remarkable series, of which the Musée national Picasso is the principal custodian; I hope that analysing it—at the intersection of the humanities and psychoanalysis—will yield fruitful results for our understanding of Picasso’s work during a period marked by the political upheavals on the eve of the Second World War, a conflict which, for the artist, actually began much earlier, from the outset of the Spanish Civil War. »
Michal SOBANSKI
PhD researcher at the Centre for the History of Sciences Po
A research project focusing on Picasso’s bathers
The research, conducted by Michal Sobanski at Sciences Po’s Centre for History under the supervision of art historian Laurence Bertrand-Dorléac, examines anxiety and sexuality in Pablo Picasso’s depictions of bathers between 1927 and 1937.
This project aims to understand how a particular aesthetic of anxiety leads to the overt sexualisation of bodies in these depictions of bathers, within a context marked by the political tensions sweeping across Europe between the two major conflicts of the 20th century. This research thus lies at the intersection of art history and the history of psychoanalysis.
Beyond its historical analysis, the thesis also seeks to contribute to the promotion of the largest collection of Picasso’s works held at the Musée national Picasso-Paris. The bathers created by the artist between 1927 and 1937 constitute a significant body of work, largely preserved in the museum’s collections, whether in the form of paintings, sculptures or graphic art.
The School of Research extends its warmest congratulations to Michal Sobanski on being awarded this grant.
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