31st January 2012

Farewell to Pepe Serra: assessment of a phase

When our director Pepe Serra said goodbye to the team at the Museu Picasso he told us: ‘We have done ten years’ work in five years.’ What follows is a brief summary of some of the projects carried out during his time as director.

· Research and development of exhibitions that contribute knowledge and added value.

“Feasting on Paris. Picasso 1900-1907” (2011). Self-Portrait with Palette, Picasso, Paris, 1906 |  “Picasso Looks at Degas” (2010). Read more »

17th January 2012

Picasso’s Barcelona Roofs

We are pleased to share with you some excerpts from an article by Francesc Pujols, ‘The Rooftops of Barcelona’, ​​first published in “La Publicidad” on 18 June 1920. Though written a few years after Picasso’s time in Barcelona, when he painted a number of pictures with the city’s rooftops as their theme, the writer seems to be describing some of the works in our collection. We are thankful to the poet Enric Casassess for sending us the article, which came to his mind as he was walking round the Museu Picasso.

Roofs of Barcelona. Pablo Picasso, 1903 Read more »

17th January 2011

Second session of the Reading Club: exploring Picasso’s Barcelona with La xava!

The second meeting of The Reading Club consisted of an analysis and comments on La xava, a novel by Juli Vallmitjana set in Barcelona in the 1900s — the Modernista Barcelona of the two Universal Exhibitions and the cultural ferment of the Quatre Gats, where Vallmitjana, by then something of a public figure, regularly saw the young Picasso.

Portrait of Vallmitjana by Picasso | Sketch for the portrait, from the Collection (MPB 110.305)

Read more »

12th July 2010

40 years working at the Museu Picasso

It’s said in no time and it’s a whole lifetime. Margarita Ferrer is leaving the Museum and all of us in the team wanted to be with her at her farewell party. Current colleagues and many old friends from other times, in-house and out-of-house, from the world of museums and the world of photography, plus Margarita’s family, of course.

As the present director and on behalf of the Museum’s former directors I want to say a big thanks for all the very, very good work, the dedication and the human warmth that Margarita has put into the Museum. Read more »

2nd August 2009

My personal approach on Picasso’s Barcelona itinerary

Before I started working at the Museum I knew next to nothing about Picasso. The one thing that really stuck in my memory was something my father told me when I was a little girl: as a boy, the great painter constantly filled the margins of his books with drawings! That and the fact that in 1906 he had stayed in Gósol, the village where my mother was born.

Of all the things I have had the good fortune to learn as head of Publications at the Museum, one of the most enjoyable has been the discovery of the places around the city with Picasso connections. I owe this in large part to the re-edition of the Guide to Picasso’s Barcelona that Josep Maria Carandell wrote to commemorate the centenary of the artist’s birth.

Read more »