Furthermore, like last year, all the museums that celebrate it will participate in the  multimedia programme “A piece of the story” in which we share with the online visitors a secret story or unknown detail about the centre or the objects of the collection.  And here we leave you with our little piece of history:

Spanish lyre table produced at the beginning of the 17th century in walnut wood and strengthened with wrought iron  braces. 78 x 160 x 95 cm. Donation by Miguel and Juan Utrillo, 25/10/1968

In 1968, the brothers Juan and Miguel Utrillo donated this table to the Museu Picasso, which had originally been in the café Quatre Gats, the meeting place of barcelonian intellectuals and bohemians during the years 1897 to 1903. Pablo Picasso made ​​his first solo exhibition in this tavern, in 1901.

Quatre Gats, c. 1899. Photo: Mas | Drawing by Ricard Opisso: Adolf Mas, Isidre Nonell, Vidal i Ventosa, Manolo Hugué, Joaquim Mir, Santiago Rusiñol, Ramón Casas, Ricard Canals, Pablo Picasso and Pere Romeu

During a recent restoration, it was discovered that this table is much older than its use in the Quatre Gats suggested. It had been made in Spain in the early seventeenth century, in walnut wood with straps of wrought iron. The sides and the wheels are modern modifications, probably from the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries.

Bulding facade, 2005. Photo: Josep M. Llobet | Current location of the table

Currently this table is in the office area and is not on public view.

Museum’s newsroom

To have managed to be the first to publish the big news about the donation of the Picassian Las Meninas to Barcelona deserves an explanation.

Las Meninas. Pablo Picasso 1957. Oil on canvas. 194 x 260 cm. MPB 70.433 | Las Meninas (Isabel de Velasco). Pablo Picasso, 17/11/1957. Oil on canvas. 24 x 19 cm. MPB 70.484

In the spring of 1964, Josep Palau i Fabre was received once again by the artist in Nôtre-Dame-de-Vie, the estate of the village of Mougins. The visit, just as he explained word for word in the book of memoires Estimat Picasso (Dear Picasso) (Destino, 1997), wasn’t long, but it turned out to be very intense.

Suddenly, Picasso commented to him: “Tell Barcelona that Las Meninas are for Barcelona”. Palau confessed that in an instant he suffered an explosive mix of happiness, perplexity and giddiness. He had become the bearer of good news, but one of imposing significance.  He didn’t want to make a mistake, so he wanted to make sure.  And he asked Picasso to clarify exactly to whom he should say it.

Quickly, without doubting, he replied: “To the people, to your friends…tell the people”.

Las Meninas. Pablo Picasso, 15/11/1957. Oil on canvas. 130 x 96 cm. MPB 70.479 | Las Meninas. Pablo Picasso, 18/09/1957. Oil on canvas. 129 x 161 cm. MPB 70.463

Palau interpreted that the message about that formidable gift was, therefore, to the people, to the citizens of Barcelona, and not to the authorities or the art professionals.

On arriving in Barcelona, in a hurry -Palau explains- he “said this, before anyone else, to my friend Lluís Permanyer”. And I, as I was already writing for the newspaper El Correo Catalán, published the article on May 12^th.  The headline could not be any other than: “Tell Barcelona that Las Meninas are for Barcelona”.

Article published in the journal El Correo Catalán on May 12 1968

I believe that Picasso was taking advantage of the opportunity offered by the fact that the rich combination of interpretative variations about the masterpiece by Velázquez was being exhibited abroad and therefore, it would be bureaucratically much easier to send the whole series to another destination, than to let it return to France.  The decision turned out to be the right one.

I believe that Palau chose me because of the security that my profile offered him: friends joined by the magic tie with Picasso. This was the key.

Las Meninas. Pablo Picasso. 15/09/1957. Oil and charcoal on canvas. 29 x 161 cm. MPB 70.460

On April 13^th 1963, I was lucky enough to spend a whole afternoon chez Picasso: intense, funny, memorable. The merit wasn’t mine, and I owe it, and I’ll never forget it, to the generosity of the doctor Cinto Reventós and his son Cinto, also a doctor.  I was already writing for the magazine Destino, and I went to meet the father: I asked him to use his influence to get the artist to receive me.  He replied that he was growing old, and that he hardly went, but that in a few weeks his son planned a visit.  I then made this same request to his son and he answered me with the warmest and friendliest “yes”.

My parents wanted to accompany me, to take advantage in this way to take a small trip around France, as it was Easter and the trip was for four days.  Assumpció Gausa, my fiancée, should have joined us in the car, as we had officially planned to get married in the autumn of 1964.  But her parents didn’t give her permission. Things of that time…

Las Meninas (infanta Margarida Maria). Pablo Picasso, 14/09/1957. Oil on canvas. 100 x 81 cm. MPB 70.459 | Las Meninas (María Agustina Sarmiento). Pablo Picasso, 20,26/08/1957. Oil and traces of red grease pencil on canvas. 46 x 37,5 cm. MPB 70.435

On returning, I wrote an extensive report.  It had been with the censors for five weeks, and without any answer, I feared the worst: that it would be prohibited.  It could have been a consequence of the irritation that Franco’s dictatorial apparatus suffered from the increasingly intolerable public Picassian presence in Barcelona: the headquarters of the College of Architects had been inaugurated as had the Museu Picasso (the name that had been expressly forbidden by the Ministry of Interior), that by the way held the official name publically of Museo Berenguer d’Aguilar: colección Sabartés. Assumpció knew Jaime Delgado, professor from the University of Barcelona, who at that time was head of censorship, and therefore, determined, she requested an audience.  He assured her that within two days it would be approved.  It was published on June 22^nd and filled two pages of Destino, illustrated with our photographs, and entitled “Horas con Picasso” (Hours with Picasso).

One afternoon, I went to the secondhand bookstore Porter: I had been a customer and friend of the family for years.  As I went to pay, Miquel Porter, who was at the till, was speaking to a person.  Then he asked: “Do you know each other?”. We hadn’t met before. And he introduced me to Josep Palau i Fabre, who immediately commented:

-You must be the one who has just published this report about Picasso.

Las Meninas. Pablo Picasso, 04/09/1957. Oil on canvas. 36 x 28 cm. MPB 70.445 | Las Meninas (Nicolasito Pertusato). Pablo Picasso, 24/10/1957. Oil on canvas. 61 x 50 cm. MPB 70.473

The friendship was sealed in this way with a solidity that never broke or even cracked, even though his friendships didn’t last.  We gave each other strong signs of fondness, which one day I hope to be able to explain in detail.

For this reason, Palau didn’t doubt –despite the fact that he cultivated a universal distrust, that I had the pleasure of never suffering, but really quite the opposite: I had to be the first to know the great news and to proclaim it to all and sundry.

Lluís Permanyer
Journalist and essayist

Opening of the ceramics exhibition

Curated by Joséphine Matamoros and Bruno Gaudichon, it is an important representation of the work of Pablo Picasso in this creative field, with around 150 works practically all of them unique pieces not produced in series, presenting diverse techniques, from tiles, cooking pots and broken fragments with drawings by Picasso, to jugs and plates that the artist made in the pottery workshop of the Ramié family in Vallauris and ending up with extraordinary pieces of a sculptural nature that he also modelled. There are pieces that have never been presented in public before.

Attendees during the opening of the exhibition

The careful setting up of the presentation allows the visual comparison of different pieces at the same time and the contemplation of the back of the plates or the possibility of seeing them in 360º from all the perspectives, many of them also being lit from below.

Some of the ceramic pieces. Photos: Mark Munari

The Museu Picasso has loaned two works from our collection of ceramics, Bullfight and Fish (1957) and Three Nudes on Dark Ground (1948), which were recently exposed in our museum in the exhibition “Picasso Ceramics. Jacqueline’s gift to Barcelona”, also centered in Picasso’s passion with pottery and the Mediterranean tradition.

It is one of the major events included in the year Marseilles/Provence 2013 European Capital of Culture and it will have a second stage in the National Museum of Sèvres – City of Ceramics, close to Paris, from the end of November onwards.

Lluís Bagunyà
International relations

Josefa Ruiz Blasco Ricardo Huelin Collection | Pablo Picasso. Portrait of Aunt Pepa. Malaga, June-July 1896. Oil on canvas.57.5 x 50.5 cm. Donationby Pablo Picasso, 1970. MPB 110.010

Josefa Ruiz was a spinster, known for her strong character, her bad moods and extreme religiosity. She had a paralysed leg.  At her brother’s Salvador home she lived in a separate wing of the house, rarely going out, and her room was full of saints, religious relics and memories of her deceased brother Pablo Ruiz Blasco. Picasso received “Pablo” as a first name in memory of this uncle, who died two years before he was born.

Pablo Picasso spent some summer stays in Malaga with his family and during the summer of 1896, when he was 15 years old, by request of his uncle Salvador, he painted a portrait in oil of Josefa Ruiz, considered to be one of the outstanding portraits by the young Picasso. The artist played with the light on the face and the chromatic treatment, achieving in this way to go deep into the psychological profile of his aunt.

John Richardson explains in volume 1 of Picasso. A biography that after the first refusal by his aunt to do the portrait, Josefa changed her mind and went to look for Picasso dressed in Sunday clothes with a winter cape, a lace cap that her sister had made and a gold watch of her brother Pablo. Legend has it that Picasso painted the portrait in less than an hour.

According to the Picasso biographer Josep Palau i Fabre the Portrait of Aunt Pepa is a masterpiece from the formative period of the young Picasso “in which the virtuosity rivals with the depth, as if both of them wanted primacy”.The work was donated to the Museu Picasso, Barcelona by Picasso himself in 1970.

The previous painting to this oil, that also belongs to the museum’s collection, is the Portrait of Aunt Pepa seated in an armchair,a pencil drawing in an album of 1895 of 36 pages that contains drawings done in Malaga and Barcelona with studies and sketches of family portraits and works of Velázquez.

Pablo Picasso. Portrait of Aunt Pepa seated in an armchair.1895.Graphite pencil on paper.12 x 8.1 cm.Donationby Pablo Picasso, 1970.MPB 111.174

Until June 9th, the work Portrait of aunt Pepa can be seen in the exhibition “Picasso de Malaga. Earliest works” in the Museo Picasso of Malaga, which carries out an itinerary of the Works from the youth of the artist in the Malaga of the end of the 19th century.

References and links

Information on the entry of the work Portrait of Aunt Pepa in the website of the Museu Picasso
Exhibition “Picasso of Malaga. Earliest works” in the Museo Picasso of Malaga
Information on the entry of the work Portrait of Aunt Pepa in the space “Works dated in Malaga (1896-1901)” from the website of the Fundación Picasso. Museo Casa Natal
Section Ancestors and family members of Picasso de la web de la Fundación Picasso. Museo Casa Nata
Picasso.A biography. Vol 1: 1881-190 by John Richardson. Alianza Editorial. Madrid, 1995. Page 58
Le nouveau dictionaire Picasso by Pierre Daix. Robert Laffont. Paris, 2012. Page 798
Málaga-Picasso Picasso-Málaga by Rafael Inglada. Editorial Arguval. Malaga, 2005. Page 118

The other inhabitants of the museum
BlanquitaSuárez
Mª Dolores Ruiz Picasso
José Ruiz Picasso
María Picasso Blasco
L’Arlequí
Bendetta Canals
Fernande Olivier
Sebastià Junyent
Carles Casagemas
Vidal-Ventosa
Reventós

The poetry of Picasso, surrealist, nostalgic (of a Spain that no longer existed), obsessed with food, tender but also luxurious, filled with old words and phrases, highly influenced by Góngora but also by his contemporaries (such as Alberti or Breton), was a way in which the creative force of the artist found a way out when, for one reason or another, he found himself in a moment, if notat a still-point, at least doubtful, in his paintings.  Many times he would focus on the same topics: the bull, the guitar, Sabartés. And always as a manifestation of creative freedom.

We will continue, in the last session of this course (how time flies!) with No soy yo. Autobiografía, performance y los nuevos espectadores (I’m not me.  Autobiography, performance and new spectators), by Estrella de Diego.

Jordi Carrión
www.jorgecarrion.com

Related links
The New Season of the Reading Club

The micro-works for this prize should be brief stories of a maximum of 1,500 characters (including spaces) written in Catalan and Spanish. By the age of 8 to 12 years, we propose a haiku, a poem in three short verses.

The subject matter should be inspired by one of the following works from the collection:

Portrait of Benedetta Bianco (Sra. Canals). Pablo Picasso. París, 1905. Oil and charchoal on canvas. MPB 4.266

The Passeig de Colom. Pablo Picasso. Barcelona, 1917. Oil on canvas. MPB 110.028

Lola, the artist’s sister, in the Studio in Riera de Sant Joan. Pablo Picasso. 1900. Oil on canvas. MPB 110.054

And to join the celebration of the “Joana Raspall Year” and are proud to announce that the poetess will be an honorary member of the jury.

You have until 23 Arpil to send us your stories!

Museum’s Newsroom

Pablo Picasso. Jacqueline with a straw hat. Mougins, 14 January 1962. Linoleum cut: etched with a gouge, in four colours, on linoleum, printed on paper (4th state). 74,9 x 61,7 cm (làmina). Gift of Jaume Sabartés, 1962, 1962. MPB 70.266 (dedication in the right corner)

The two friends met when they were very young, when they were teenagers – they were just eighteen years old, but they immediately grasped the complicity that would unite them (“we started to realise that we could understand each other and feel the pleasure of being together”), a complicity that would last the whole of their lives.  Picasso started doing portraits of Sabartés in 1900, just a year after they had met, and he continued to do so over the years.  Sometimes they were drawings, other times oils and other, poems; but he didn’t only paint portraits of his friend, he also turned him into the recipient of many of these portraits.

In 1935, whenPicasso lived in Paris and started to suffer from the loneliness of the genius, he asked his friend to come back and join him, and Sabartés went and stayed forever.  It is in that moment that Picasso started to give him a copy of all his prints with a dedication; at the start they were long writings, often jokingly (one of the registers that both shared) and later on, when Sabartés lived in Paris and Picasso was in the south of France, the dedication became “Pour Sabartés”. And “Pour Sabartés” was even after the death of Sabartés in 1968, when Picasso continued giving a copy of each of his prints to the Museum of Barcelona “Pour Sabartés”… For the artist, the Museum represented the figure of Sabartés, the native city of his friend, the memories of youth.  And “Pour Sabartés”were the major donations of works by Picasso to the Museum of Barcelona “in memory of my unforgettable friend”. Sabartés was no longer, but Picasso bore him very closely in mind until his own death in 1973.

Pablo Picasso. Blue portrait of Jaume Sabartés. 1901. Oil on canvas. 46 x 38 cm. MPB 70.491

“Pour Sabartés” is one of the ways in which Picasso expressed his admiration for Sabartés, but it is more than that, and I would say much more.  Dedicating something that someone created to a person is, undoubtedly, a really lovely and sincere way of showing affect and deep respect, and Picasso, who couldn’t be any other way, was fully aware of this and proceeded accordingly.

On the occasion of this anniversary, we have wanted to do justice to the figure of Sabartés, that rather unknown character, and often labelled as a dark shadow of Picasso, but who was key in the formation of the Museum thanks to his relation with the artist and with the city of Barcelona. However, today I would like to highlight an aspect of the figure of Picasso that is perhaps less known.We always see the genius (without a doubt he was one) and the complex person, but Picasso was also a friend of his friends and a defender of lost causes. He was loyal to his friends and with Sabartés he clearly demonstrated this.

Pablo Picasso. The bull. 1946. Etching. 32,5 x 44,4 cm. MPB 70.012

I would like to finish with a story of Picasso “Pour Sabartés”. In 1901, the artist painted in Paris the Blue portrait of Jaume Sabartés. Some weeks later, both of them had to return to Barcelona and Picasso put a painting in his suitcase and told his friend that when he got there he would pass by his home and would give him the portrait, but he didn’t do so, he first went to the tavern of the Quatre Gats and left it hanging there.  Years later, once the bar had closed, the work passed from hand to hand until Picasso bought it to get it back, and from that moment on it remained in his home, by his side.  When Sabartés died in 1968, Picasso gave the work to the Museum of Barcelona… “Pour Sabartés”. It is now hung in gallery eight of the Museum, and here we have it… in memory of Picasso “Pour Sabartés”.

SílviaDomènech
Knowledge and Research

Related links
Exhibit: 50 years of the Museu Picasso in Barcelona
Article: Sabartés, that great friend
Event: Jaume Sabartés Visit

The conversation about the orphan protagonist, the brilliant ambiguity from the narrative point of view, the importance of the cinema, the topographic reconstruction of the memory, the abusive police, the seductive mother and the overall effect of the narrative work of Marsé was entertaining, interesting and full of anecdotes.  It couldn’t have been otherwise, if you take into account the fact that Izquierdo is a contemporary and friend of the writer.

The temporal question was in particular one of the important ones of the evening. Not only for historical questions (the civil war, the urban transformations, the chronology itself of the fiction, the biographies of the characters), but also the contrast between that period and ours.  A period in which the unions were still powerful, in which the neighbourhood cinemas and the tebeos (the children’s comics) formed part of the sentimental education of the youths, in which the technology of entertainment didn’t yet condition the people’s lives.

For the next meeting we will be radically changing the field, and for the first time we will be tackling the textual production of Pablo Picasso himself, with Textos españoles (Spanish texts).

Jordi Carrión
www.jorgecarrion.com

Related links
New Season of the Reading Club

Placement of the plaque of the Museu Picasso. c. 1966. Photo: Hernández

The museum staff were really looking forward to celebrating it in a very special way, and in a way that was close to the citizens of Barcelona (to whom Picasso gave so many of his works) and that it would also allow the whole team to participate and make a contribution.

For this reason we proposed holding an open doors day in which the staff of the museum would share with the public their knowledge and also their passion for the works which are the reason that the museum exists.  A knowledge that comes from the many different activity fields of the museum, not only from the curators, but also from restoration, education, communication, and also publications, registry, security, press, etc.

So, those of us who were willing to do it chose our favourite works and prepared our brief presentations. The preparation process caused many internal comings and goings, chats with curators and consultations in the library to confirm and broaden information, and even rehearsals and exchanging of facts and figures or materials obtained during the research.  We all got highly involved and awaited the day with a mix of excitement and nervousness, given the fact that for many of us, live presentations are not part of our day-to-day work.

The day arrived and the museum opened with people already queuing outside, and quickly the presentations filled up.  It was very exciting to see how the public shared the proposal, looking at the handout to decide which presentation they wanted to listen to straight away, how attentive they were in front of the paintings and how they took part and participated in the talks.

Internally, it was also very moving to see how almost all the staff came throughout the day, regardless of their giving presentations or not, to follow their colleagues and encourage them, giving them support, etc. And it was also magnificent the involvement and total complicity of  the staff that works in public attention, who backed us up at all times, and shared the celebration with us.

Presentations of works by the museum staff

We have asked for feedback, anecdotes and experiences of our improvised guides, and here are some of their reflections of how they lived the day:

Sílvia Domènech – Head of the Knowledge and Research Centre
“The second time I explained the Blue portrait of Jaume Sabartés, I had a little girl of about six years old who was totally enthused by my explanation.  When I finished she applauded and came up to me and said ‘I liked it a lot…when are you going to tell anotherfairytale?’ For me that was the best of the day!”

Marta Jové – Publications
“The day allowed us to be in contact with the public that was very direct and very gratifying (especially for those of us who can rarely have this contact, due to the kind of functions we do in the museum).  The expressions of the people who listened to us were priceless.  For me personally it reinforced my deep love for the museum, and for my work. It was also very positive to strengthen the ties between the people who work in the museum, because it was a common project, beyond the departmental projects that we are used to doing. Working with the staff who managed the public or with colleagues of activities was very gratifying indeed.

Presentations of works by the museum staff. Photos: Josep María Llobet

The best anecdote was this one: I was in gallery 8 listening to a colleague.  A lady with her daughter came up to me and said that the girl (totally embarrassed by her mother’s initiative) had some doubts about one of the paintings and wondered if I could help.  So as not to be rude I said I would, but I broke out into a cold sweat thinking that I, deep down, knew little about the collection and depending what work they were talking about I didn’t know how I would get by. Furthermore, we were going towards galleries 10 and 11…Luckily they took me to look at the painting called
The Passeig de Colom.  The young girl’s problem was how to understand the perspective shown in the painting.  I improvised an explanation about cubism that I will never forget in my life.  Anyway, it seemed that the mother and daughter were very grateful…and also the small group that formed around me while I tried to explain what occurred to me.”

Mercè García – Activities Service (Department of Public Programmes)
“Well, for me it was a very moving day, exhausting but fun, a day in which there was a lot of complicity between the staff of the museum and the different departments, given that we don’t always have the opportunity to do so, and it worked out perfectly.  Both the public who attended and we ourselves had a very good time, which was what it was all about.”

Xavier Vilaró – Coordinator of Security
“For me it was very nice to see the happiness of the people and how they followed the explanations, with a positive feedback, sharing experiences.  And how the public loyally went from one presentation session to the next, they were a very interested and informed public, and very participative.  And how all the colleagues worked together as a close-knit team, sharing the same moment.  I had a really good time, and it was very enriching.”

To all the staff who managed the public from the company Magma, to all of those from the museum who were bold enough to participate – and to all those from the museum who didn’t but actively participated in making the 50th anniversary possible, to past workers of the house, to Press and Communication Department, Manel and Anna, to Milena, Mercè, Vanesa and Cristina who were involved throughout the day without stopping, and above all to the magnificent public who attended, a huge THANK YOU! for your complicity warmth and for making this celebration possible.

Anna Guarro

Public Programmes
Related links
Photo gallery of the museum’s 50th anniversary
Online  Community

Restoration detail of the Portrait of the Artist’s Mother

This was a technical conference with the pastel procedure as its main focus, in which we discussed different systems applied to the conservation and restoration of this artistic procedure and the latest alternative proposals were reviewed of its handling, framing and presentation in rooms. The event was a success in terms of participation and an occasion for restorers from the whole country to meet up.  We were also able to count on the presence of our colleagues from the Musée National Picasso, Paris.

After a brief introduction of the Collection of the museum given by Anna Vélez, a member of the Preventive Conservation and Restoration Department of the museum, we presented our lines of action and the conservation policy on works produced using fragile techniques such as charcoal or pastel.

Restoration detail of the Portrait of the Artist’s Mother. Photos: Department of Preventive Conservation and Restoration

The conference opened with the presentation of the restoration process of an emblematic piece of our collection, the Portrait of the Artist’s Mother produced in 1896 by a young Picasso who had recently arrived in Barcelona. This has been one of the latest interventions carried out by the department of prevention conservation and restoration of the museum and which on this occasion counted on the collaboration of two technicians in graphic documents, Carme Bello and Angels Borrell from Estudio B2 of Barcelona. The vision and experience of the different specialists involved allowed us to deal with all the aspects related to the support and the supported element, the colour applied to the pastel.

A secondary cardboard support, stuck on during a previous restoration, had provoked structural tension in the paper, which had become apparent over the years in a progressive way until the work had ended up becoming seriously deformed. After the new intervention process had been carried out, these distorting elements that affected the stability and impeded the correct perception of the understanding of the understanding of the distorted work were removed. Also during this restoration process, a drawing was discovered on the back that in these moments is undergoing a process of documentation. A special exhibition allows the visitors to see, in a temporary and exceptional way, until April 7ht, both the front and back of this work.

Portrait of the Artist’s Mother. Pablo Picasso, 1896. Pastel on paper, 49,8 x 39 cm.  MPB 110.016 | Person with pipe. Conté pencil and white crayon on paper. MPB 110.016R

Cécile Gombaud, conservator of works in paper and currently collaborator of the Rijksmuseum of Amsterdam, presented various practical case studies of interventions carried out in pastels of diverse formats, as well as his personal experience in the use of systems for fixing the colour based on sturgeon glue.

Florence Herrenschmidt, consultant in preventive conservation and specialist in the conservation of graphic documents, gave a brilliant historical overview of the first attempts in preventive conservation at the beginning of the 20th century focused mainly on the casuistry of loans and transport of pastel works.  From her perspective as restorer of the Antoine Lécuyer Museum (Saint-Quentin, France), a small museum with an important collection of pastels, she explained the specific problems of maintaining a coherent conservation policy with limited means.

Finally, the conference was brought to a close by the Swiss Olivier Masson, conservator of works on paper. His research in preventive conservation has allowed him to develop an ingenious procedure for assembling pastels. Some internal cardboard structures provide stability to the work, protecting it from climatic variations and isolating it from harmful materials. In this way it is possible to maintain the original frames and glass and respect the unity of the work.

Reyes Jiménez
Head of the Preventive Conservation and Restoration Department

Related links
Presentation of the restoration of the Portrait of the Artist’s Mother