Bangladesh, Oct. 9 -- Manchesters Currier Museum is currently presenting Personal Mythologies: Picasso in the 1940s and 50s-a small exhibition consisting of three paintings, two of which are on loan through October, LHomme au béret basque (1946) and The Two Children (1954). The third, belonging to the Currier collection, is the remarkable Woman Seated in a Chair (1941), a portrait of the artist Dora Maar, painted in Picassos small Paris studio during the Nazi occupation.

Maar was a French photographer, painter, and poet, and Picassos companion during those years. It is an extraordinarily vibrant painting, bold in its use of line and sharp geometric planes. What makes it truly devastating is how Picassos brush transforms the simplest...