In February 1939, when a Spanish-born artist named Pablo Picasso first appeared on TIME's cover, the accompanying story took note of his controversial celebrity: "For 30 years ... the very name of Picasso has been a symbol of irresponsibility to the old, of audacity to the young. To millions of solid citizens it has been one of the two things they know about modern art--the other being that they don't like it." How times, and tastes, have changed. Every day for the next four months, 8,000 "solid citizens," clutching coveted tickets, will stream through the galleries of New York City's Museum of Modern Art to view the most comprehensive exhibition of Picasso's work ever organized. "Such a thing was simply inconceivable when I was starting out 20 years ago," says TIME Art Critic Robert Hughes, who wrote this week's cover story about the MOMA show, with assistance from Reporter-Researcher Rosemarie Tauris Zadikov. "The whole cultural matrix has changed. The idea that modern art is a permanent revolution is dead. Modernism is now our official, institutional culture, and Picasso is one of its old masters."

So receptive has the public become, Hughes says, that even television is ready for modern art. During the past three years, he has written and narrated an eight-part series of hour-long programs on various aspects of 20th century art for a BBC-TV and Time-Life Television coproduction. Titled Shock of the New, it will be shown on public television stations next January. "Picasso pervades the entire series," says Hughes. "The history of cubism is largely about Picasso. No discussion of art as political emblem can avoid Guernica, the last major political work of art. Picasso was a dominating influence on surrealism and the chief inspiration of American abstract expressionism. The shape of 20th century art is unimaginable without him."

The photographs of Picasso that follow Hughes' story are the work of David Douglas Duncan, who took thousands of pictures of Picasso and his family in the 17 years before the artist died in 1973. During his visits, Duncan would often follow Picasso through several days' activities. "In some ways it was more exhausting than combat photography," he recalls.

"Imagine an endless prizefight with the world champ, as you wait, with muscles taut, ready to nail him when he drops his guard for the flash of an eye. Then you have a mini-idea of what it was like trying to keep Pablo Picasso in your range finder for a single day."

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