22nd of July 2010

Picasso’s Cadaqués

This July sees the opening in the Museu de Cadaqués of the exhibition “Picasso’s Cadaqués: the Centenary of Pablo Picasso’s Stay in Cadaqués 1910-2010″. Curated by Pere Vehí and Ricard Mas, the show boasts an impressive selection of photographs, drawings and oil paintings by artists associated with the little town of Cadaqués. Read more »

20th of July 2010

Discussing Wikipedia & Museums at the Picasso in Barcelona

Do you remember my remarks about the Museums & the Web conference? Well, we’ve just had an informal mini Wikimedia session here in Barcelona. This was prompted by the happy coincidence of three factors: the arrival of Liam Wyatt, who has just concluded his stint as Wikipedian-in-Residence at the British Museum, the growing interest of local museums in what is a real outreach phenomenon, and the dynamism of the Wikipedia community of Catalonia (Vikipèdia). Read more »

16th of July 2010

An Unforgettable Evening: Satie’s music fills the Museum’s rooms and courtyards

A few days ago we presented a thoroughly out-of-the-ordinary activity at the Museu Picasso: as a complement to the current “Picasso vs. Rusiñol” exhibition, which among other things touches on the friendship of both artists with the French composer Erik Satie (1866-1925), we put on a special performance of the complete repertoire of Satie’s compositions for piano.

That last fact alone is enough to make it clear that this was no ordinary concert: having assembled all of the works for piano, some of which were very difficult to get hold of, the recital lasted almost six hours! Read more »

12th of 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 »

7th of July 2010

The fleeting puzzle of Picasso’s The Embrace. The story of a discovery

The history of this discovery has two dates, 2004 and 2010. In the summer of 2004, during a visit to the Diocesan Museum in Barcelona to see the exhibition “Els 4 Gats. From Casas to Picasso”, I first saw a very unusual drawing by Picasso, on loan from a private collection. The work was presented as if it were complete and was in the form of a vertical strip, long and narrow (59 x 12.6 cm), on which only a building and a carriage could be discerned. The medium was pastel, in vibrant tones. Surprising and little known as the work was, there could be no doubt it was a picasso. Read more »

28th of June 2010

The students ‘open up’ Las Meninas! Joint Venture between the Escola Deià and the Museu Picasso

On Thursday, 17 June the Museu Picasso hosted the presentation of the book LAS MENINAS # SÈRIE OBERTA, the result of collaborative venture between the Museum and the Escola d’Art i Superior de Disseny Deià. The story begins with an invitation to the city’s art schools with the aim of opening the doors of the Museum and generating dialogues with young design students, encouraging them to take a fresh and freely critical look at the institution.

The Escola Deià, which specializes in interior design and ephemeral architecture, centred the project on the exhibition concept, with a particular focus on the series Las Meninas, one of the most important works in the Museum’s collection. Read more »

22nd of June 2010

“Picasso Looks at Degas” opens in the USA: this autumn, the only European headquarters in the Museu Picasso Barcelona!

On 12 June the museum of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute inaugurated the American phase of the exhibition “Picasso Looks at Degas“, which will have its unique presentation in the European Museu Picasso from 14 October.

The Clark Institute is a highly prestigious museum and centre for research in the history of art in Williamstown (Massachusetts), in the heart of New England. Just a couple of hours north of New York City, the town hosts a wealth of cultural activities during the summer, and the opening, part of the annual Summer Gala, brought together over 300 people in the Clark’s lovely gardens. Read more »

17th of June 2010

Santiago Rusiñol’s The Prodigal Puppet

A painter, playwright, musician, storyteller and one of the supreme exponents of Modernista bohemianism, Santiago Rusiñol was the author of such emblematic plays for the Catalan stage as L’auca del senyor Esteve, L’hèroe, Els savis de Vilatrista and L’alegria que passa. Read more »

11th of June 2010

The Cannibal Gaze: Picasso swallows up Rusiñol

Would you like to know the story behind the current exhibition at the Museu Picasso? The show’s curator reveals some of the choices and decisions in the process of conceptualizing and staging the exhibition Picasso vs. Rusiñol.

The exhibition narrative

The idea of this exhibition is to establish a discourse on the relationship between Picasso and the leading exponent of Catalan art when Picasso was living in Barcelona, Santiago Rusiñol. Although Picasso’s links to Catalan art are well known, very little has been written specifically about the relations between the two men, a circumstance which made a considerable amount of original research necessary. Read more »

9th of June 2010

Has it really been a year? The Museu Picasso’s 2.0 progress

It really feels like just a few days ago that we started this blog and the museum’s active presence on social media, but — believe it or not! — we’ve just had our first anniversary! To celebrate, we opened the doors of the museum to the online community one Monday, which is the day of the week we are closed to the public, to give our visitors the special privilege of having the place to themselves. Read more »