The name of Pablo Picasso has been officially anathema in his native Spain ever since Franco. Last week it fluttered through the conversation of Madrid's arty set as persistently as one of the master's mechanical Communist peace doves. While suspicious plainclothesmen strained to detect something subversive in the highbrow cafe controversies, the government wondered how to suppress Spain's liveliest and most political art wrangle in 15 years.
The fuss was kicked up in the first place by Jesus de Perceval, a sleepy-eyed but ambitious young painter from Almeria. Last month, at the opening of Madrid's Hispano-American Art Biennale, Perceval drew the critics'...
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