From the first, Picasso divided opinion in Britain: when Roger Fry first exhibited his paintings at his ground-breaking Post-Impressionist exhibitions in 1910 and 1912 the public hooted with laughter; Evelyn Waugh took to signing off his letters with the exclamation "Death to Picasso"; and Alfred Munnings, the President of the RA, asked Churchill: "If you met Picasso coming down the street would you join me in kicking his...something, something?"

However, the Tate first showed his work in 1926 and there were specialist exhibitions of his drawings in London as early as 1912 and the first retrospective of his work was held in 1931, before there was one in Paris. He also had a faithful and influential group of British collectors and supporters that included Herbert Read, Roland Penrose and Douglas Cooper. These men and artists such as Wyndham Lewis understood Picasso's importance before he was widely recognised as 20th-century art's biggest beast.

To make its point, 60 of Picasso's paintings are among the 150 works on show, an exercise in compare and contrast that suggests no 20th-century British artist of note was immune to his influence. Even though Picasso chose to migrate to France rather than Britain, the idea of him made a new life here.