No. No painting by Picasso was aboard the Titanic. The idea comes from James Cameron's 1997 film, in which the heroine Rose owns Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. That canvas never went near the ship, and it has hung in New York's Museum of Modern Art for decades.
The scene is short. A maid asks who painted the canvas, Rose answers "Something Picasso," and her fiancé Cal declares that the man will not amount to a thing. The audience is meant to laugh. Many went home remembering the painting as part of the ship.
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Rose could not have owned that painting. In April 1912, it had never been shown to the public. Picasso had finished it five years earlier and kept it with him, from studio to studio.
The first public showing came in 1916, four years after the ship went down. I find that stranger than the myth itself: the film's best-known joke depends on a painting the public had not yet seen.
Even its name was not settled. The poet André Salmon, a friend of Picasso who helped organize that show, gave the painting the title it carries today. Picasso preferred other names.
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