LONDON, March 8 (Xinhua) -- The first solo exhibition of works by the famous Spanish artist Pablo Picasso opened here Thursday at the Tate Modern.

It has been described as one of the most ambitious shows in the museum's history and comes 45 years after the artist's death.

The exhibition, "Picasso 1932 - Love, Fame and Tragedy", takes visitors on a month-by-month journey through a year that was pivotal in Picasso's life and work, earning the description of the artists year of wonder.

More than 100 paintings, sculptures and works on paper, mixed with family photographs, are being exhibited until Sept. 9.

Three of his extraordinary paintings featuring his lover Marie-Therese Walter are shown together for the first time since they were created over a period of just five days in March 1932.

It was a year during which Picasso kept a delicate balance between looking after his wife Olga Picasso and their 11-year-old son Paulo, and his passionate relationship with Walter.

Achim Borchardt-Hume, director of exhibitions at Tate Modern who co-curated the event, said: "Picasso famously described painting as just another form of diary keeping. This exhibition invites you to get close to the artist, to his ways of thinking and working, and to the tribulations of his personal life at a pivotal moment in his career."

Nancy Ireson, the Tate's curator of international art, also a co-curator of the event, said: "We are thrilled to be reuniting some of Picasso's greatest works of art for the first time in 86 years, many of which are rarely shown in public."

Said a spokeswoman at the Tate: "The myths around Picasso will be stripped away to reveal the man and the artist in his full complexity and richness. You will see him as never before in a show offering rare glimpses into his personal life."

Early indications based on ticket sales show the exhibition is set to be a massive hit for the Tate.

The exhibition is organised by Tate Modern in collaboration with Musee national Picasso-Paris.