16th February 2012

Two Old Friends Meet again in Space, Time and Art

After spending two years apart in different rooms of the Museu Picasso, now, as a result of a redistribution of the collection towards the end of 2011, two highlights of our collection —Woman’s Head (Fernande), from 1905, and Portrait of Madame Canals (1906), now known as Portrait of Benedetta Bianco — are on show in the same space once again, directly facing one another.

This new placing of the two works, the first a sculpture and the other a painting, reflects a desire to explain the influence of their respective models on the personal and artistic world of Picasso in Paris in the early years of the twentieth century.

Portrait of Benedetta Bianco | Woman’s Head (Fernande)

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17th October 2011

The Reading Club is back, with Fernande Olivier in the spotlight

Last Thursday saw the start of the second season of the Museu Picasso Reading Club. Last year I cam along to the Club as an ordinary member, but this time round I was asked to lead the discussion about the memoir by Fernande Olivier, Recuerdos íntimos.

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12th June 2009

The Explosion of Colour: Van Dongen in Barcelona

Lovers of Fauvism and of art in general will want to visit the Museu Picasso in Barcelona for the first ever retrospective in Spain of the work of Kees van Dongen (Rotterdam, 1877 – Monaco, 1968), which offers a whole new perspective on the artist thanks to the findings of important recent research, and presents a number of hitherto all-but-unknow works.

This retrospective, opened from 11 June to September 2009, co-produced by the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco and the Museu Picasso de Barcelona and curated by Jean-Michael Bouhours, former curator of the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco and currently director of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and Pepe Serra, director of the Museu Picasso, brings together almost 80 works by Van Dongen and four by Picasso, as testimony to the relationship between the two artists.

Photo of Fernande Olivier. Caption: One of the points of contact between Van Dongen and Picasso was a woman: Fernande Olivier, Picasso’s companion, who modelled for both artists.

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