20th March 2013

The conservation and restoration of pastel

On February 28th the Museu Picasso organised a seminar entitled The pastel technique: specificities of its conservation and restoration.

Restoration detail of the Portrait of the Artist’s Mother

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28th November 2012

The recuperation of the neoclassical splendour of the Palau del Baró de Castellet of the Museu Picasso

Thanks to a comprehensive conservation and restoration intervention, carried out over the past few months by the team of restorers of Blanca Lopez de Arriba, Beatriz Montoliu and Jesús Zornoza, the visitors to the museum will once again be able to enjoy this singular decorative ensemble.

Detail of the cleaning and recuperation process of the original marble-work

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20th December 2011

Conference on decorative printed paper at Museu Picasso

The presentation of the process of restoring the Palau Aguilar’s 16^th-century polychrome printed wallpaper recovered in 2010 (see the article on the website) was a perfect opportunity for a professional get-together on Monday the 12th.

The director of the Museu Picasso, Pepe Serra, opened the conference with a reminder of the important contribution made by technical expertise (materials, creative processes, etc) in the documentation not only of the museum’s collections and also of its buildings.

Restoring the Palau Aguilar’s ceiling Read more »

16th June 2011

Picasso and non-traditional techniques

If the invention of the lead tube as a container for oil paint enabled the Impressionists to get out of the studio and work in the open air, capturing nature at first hand, the use of industrially manufactured paint provided the ultimate freedom to the artists of the early twentieth century.

Under the title From Can to Canvas, an international colloquium was held in Marseille last May at which restorers and conservators from Europe and America got together to discuss non-traditional painting materials and techniques, putting forward an alternative, complementary vision of the history of art based on the study of the creative process.

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1st December 2010

Wallpaper. The Museu Picasso at the Château de Prangins, Switzerland

Faire parler les murs. Papier peint in situ is the title of the recent conference at the Château de Prangins in Switzerland. The Museu Picasso in Barcelona was invited to present a communication on the ensemble of decorative printed paper from the 16th century, discovered in 2009 in one of the rooms on the ground floor of the Palau Aguilar.

The Château de Prangins is a magnificent building on the shores of Lake Leman. It dates from 1700 and since 1993 has been the home of the Musée national suisse.

Château de Prangins

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13th October 2010

Harlequin in Los Angeles: travel notes

Acting as a courier, travelling from one side of the planet to the other, there is always a bit of time to note down one’s key ideas about the journey, the works and the museums.

During the next four months, one of ‘our’ paintings — Picasso’s Harlequin — will be on show in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Having returned from my trip to Los Angeles to supervise the shipping, I’d like share one or two travel notes with you: Read more »