Picasso’s Las Meninas

Valentín Roma

As part of the series ‘the Collection seen by…’ the Museu Picasso invited professor Valentín Roma to give a talk, and we are now posting on our blog the excerpts most directly related to Picasso’s famous work. This is a highly stimulating, playful and provocative text: 5-star recommended reading.

I would like to propose two terms in relation to Picasso and Las Meninas. The first term is tradition. The second term is promiscuity.

We can distinguish four kinds of artistic promiscuity: the promiscuity of the flesh, the promiscuity of time, the promiscuity of the gaze and the promiscuity of history.

Read more »

Share

21 images of what happened in 2009 in the Picasso Museum

Looking back over 2009, what can we say we are proud of? Of the number of visitors? Of course that’s important but not more than other aspects, although naturally we value and are very grateful for the number of visitors we receive.

However, what we really are proud of is the fact of promoting the educational programme, of having produced some temporary exhibitions that, as a result of the research, have contributed new knowledge about the works of Picasso, of having renovated the museographic presentation of the series of Las Meninas, of having restored the ceilings of the Palau Aguilar, of the increase in loans of works to international exhibitions, of having started the works of the new building that will accommodate the new services of Knowledge and Research, of having put the collection online, of having renewed the spaces of security with leading-edge technology,  of having increased the acquisitions of the collection of the museum, of having diversified the offer of activities and with a multi-disciplinary vision, of having actively entered in the social networks or 2.0, of having invited international and national experts to collaborate with the museum.

Read more »

Share

The Why and the How of the New Presentation of Las Meninas

The return of Las Meninas to the museum after being out on loan for the exhibitions Picasso et les maitres, at the Grand Palais in Paris, and Picasso. Challenging the Past, at the National Gallery in London, together with the important gift of a preliminary drawing of the series, has led the Museum to a new presentation of the series of variations on the great painting by Velázquez that Picasso made between August and December 1957.

Our intention has been to respect the will of the artist and faithfully reflect his creative process. According to his friend and biographer Roland Penrose (Roland Penrose, Picasso. His Life and Work, 3rd e., University of California Press, Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1981, p. 434), Picasso was adamant thet the complete series of 58 paintings be kept together. He resolved not to sell any of them, and in order to ensure this unity he donated the whole series to the Museu Picasso of Barcelona in 1968. Interestengly, the artist left a record of the rhythm at which he was working, dating all of the canvases on the back, and even noting the order of execution on the occasions when he painted more than one on the same day. Read more »

Share

We’ve got something special to celebrate: a brand new addition to the Museu Picasso!

Since last May 26, the Museu Picasso has the only known preparatory sketch for the  Las Meninas series, which reveals how Pablo Picasso conceived and addressed that great work. He made sketch the very day before painting the first canvas in the series.

Thanks to the generosity of Catherine Hutin, the daughter of Jacqueline Picasso, the museum now has the only known sketch of Las Meninas. Catherine is following in her mother’s footsteps in maintaining Pablo Picasso’s close ties with the city of Barcelona.

We know that Picasso shut himself in the studio at La Californie, his villa near Cannes, from 16 August to 30 December 1957 to work on the series Las Meninas, one of the most in-depth analyses ever made of the great painting by Velázquez. We shall very soon be privileged to contemplate the Picasso canvas (been on temporary loan to the National Gallery for the exhibition Picasso.Challenging the Past), dated August 17, 1957, together with the sketch, and delight once more in the artist’s greatness.

Read more »

Share