El Blog

In the previous post we explained what the major milestones of 2015 had been: in this one we would like to present our projects for 2016, that we are beginning full of energy and with proposals in all the activity fields of the museum.

With regard to our exhibition programme, we will present the exhibition Cubism and war. The crystal in the flame, which will be the main exhibition of the expositive season of the museum, focused on the survival of the European avant-garde artists established in Paris during the First World War. The response to the conflict of war was an artistic movement that boosted cubist aesthetics with architectural elements, based on stability and integrity. The exhibition will be inaugurated on October 20^th and remain open to the public until January 29^th 2017, with around eighty works in which, as well as the three artists especially represented–Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris and Diego Rivera– works will also be exhibited by Georges Braque, Henri Matisse, Fernand Léger, María Blanchard, Gino Severini, Henri Laurens and Jacques Lipchitz.

Pablo Picasso. Harlequin and woman with a necklace. 1917. Oil on canvas. 200 x 200 cm. Legacy of the Baroness Eva Gourgaud in 1965. Centre Pompidou, Paris Musée national d’art moderne/Centre de création industrielle nºinv. AM 3760 P. Photography © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Bertrand Prévost © Successió Pablo Picasso, VEGAP, Madrid 2016 | Pablo Picasso. The staircase (Second state). 1914. Oil on canvas. 88 x 124.5 cm. Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid 645 (1977.9). Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid © Fernand Leger, VEGAP, Barcelona, 2016

The curator of the exhibition is Christopher Green, emeritus professor of History of Art in the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, who will make a first approach of the thesis of the exhibition within the framework of the III Master Conference Jaume Sabartés, which this year will take place on March 10^th. Under the title The realism of cubism during the War, this talk will be an “appetizer” with regard to this relevant expositive proposal and a date to note down in your diary for all the art lovers of the 20^th century!

Various smaller format exhibitions will also be inaugurated that will present the results of the research and work carried out by the museum based around our collection, that we will briefly describe as follows:

• Latest Donations and Acquisitions (February 25th to May 15th 2016). Presentation of a selection of works and documents that have joined the collection in recent years. Some of them known, ?such as the David Douglas Duncan Collection, the Editorial Gustavo Gili Collection, the Gili-Torra or the Brigitte Baer Collections?, but also some less visible ones such as the anonymous donations and the documentary purchases.

Dedication that Picasso wrote in the book «Jacint Reventós Conti and various authors, Remembering Doctor Reventós (Homage of his friends)». Barcelona, Gustavo Gili, 1969. Copy Nº. B – Pablo Picasso. Celestina making presentations. Mougins, March 28th 1970. Conté pencil on paper. 30.7 x 24.7 cm. Gustau Gili and Anna Maria Torra Collections. Museu Picasso, Barcelona. Museu Picasso, Barcelona. Photography: Gasull Fotografia © Successió Pablo Picasso, VEGAP, Madrid 2016

• The 156 engravings Between 1963 and 1972, Picasso would go back to engraving in metal. During this period, he worked with two printers, the brothers Piero and Aldo Crommelynck. The result of this collaboration was, amongst others, one of the major series that would be particular to the late period of Picasso the engraver: the 156 engravings that were produced by him between October 24th 1968 and March 25th 1972.
  

  Pablo Picasso. Maison Tellier. The party of the housekeeper. Owl. Degas leaning on a wall. Mougins, June 14th and 16th 1971. Sugar lift aquatint with bite brush, drypoint and scraped on copper plate, printed on Rives vellum paper. 22,9 x 30.6 cm (plate); 36.3 x 45.3 cm (sheet). Museu Picasso, Barcelona. Família Picasso Donation, 1980. MPB 112.269. Museu Picasso, Barcelona. Photography: Gasull Fotografia © Successió Pablo Picasso, VEGAP, Madrid 2016

• Ceramics in the Museu Picasso (from June 23rd to October 23rd 2016). On the occasion of the 47th Congress of the International Academy of Ceramics, the Museu Picasso will present a selection of photographies from our collection, taken by relevant photographers -Chamudes, DUncan, Otero and Villers- while Picasso was working on ceramics. Picasso participated in one of the first editions of this meeting in Cannes and this had a decisive effect on his artistic development as a potter, because it was where he discovered the tradition of Spanish ceramics.
  

  David Douglas Duncan. Picasso and the ceramic Owl. La Californie, 1957. Museu Picasso, Barcelona. David Douglas Duncan Donation, 2013 © David Douglas Duncan 2015 © Successió Pablo Picasso, VEGAP, Madrid 2016

• Mythologies, graphic work in the collection of the museum (from November 24th 2016 to March 20th 2017). Picasso felt attracted by the world of mythology throughout his life. Picasso the engraver recreated the characters and scenes taken from the fertile world of the Greco-Roman mythology.
  

  Pablo Picasso. Faune musician Nº. 4. Valauri, March 10th 1948. Lithography. Watercolour on zinc plate, printed on Arches vellum paper (Sabartés proof). 76.3 x 56.2 cm (sheet). Museu Picasso, Barcelona. Jaume Sabartés donation, 1962. MPB 70.119. Museu Picasso, Barcelona. Photography: Gasull Fotografia © Successió Pablo Picasso, VEGAP, Madrid 2016

With regard to the research based around the collection, after the task of research and revision of the titles, dates, technique and dimensions of 304 paintings and 2 sculptures of the collection, during 2016 the new catalogue of painting and sculpture of the museum will be presented. For this research, an intensive revision has been carried out of each of the works, the fronts and backs have been digitized, and the origin and expositive history of each of the works has been checked, all of which being completely documented. This catalogue is the second volume, which follows the one dedicated to ceramics, published in 2012. It represents one of the most important research projects of recent years in the Museum.

Also worth highlighting is the Research project Barcelona 1917, a systematic technical study of the series of paintings produced during the stay of Pablo Picasso in Barcelona in 1917 which represents a rich range of techniques, styles and formats, and highlights this heterogeneous production so closely linked to the development of cubism. The results of the research work will be made known in a seminar next year.

Pablo Picasso. Blanquita Suárez. Barcelona, 1917. Oil on canvas. 73.3 x 47 cm. Museu Picasso, Barcelona. Pablo Picasso Donation, 1970.MPB 110.013. Museu Picasso, Barcelona. Photography: Gasull Fotografia © Successió Pablo Picasso, VEGAP, Madrid 2016

Among the activities foreseen for 2016, the Museu will be holding the seventh edition of the Big Draw. La Festa del Dibuix (The Drawing Party) on October 30^th, from 10 o’clock in the morning to 6 o’clock in the afternoon, consolidated as the most important annual event based around creativity organized by a museum centre of the city, with more than 10,000 participants annually, between families, youths and adults of all ages. This event is a project led by the Museu Picasso in which drawing is the protagonist and in which there is a commitment towards a constant renewal of the contents. As a proposal linked closely to the immediate surroundings of the Museum, it counts on the collaboration of an important number of entities from the neighbourhoods of La Ribera, Santa Caterina and Sant Pere and offers workshops by recognised professionals from various fields who, yet another year, propose new ways of drawing from multiple disciplines.

Big Draw. La Festa del Dibuix

With regard to the Educational Service of the museum, in which a great dynamism is concentrated and work is done so as to be an active part of the life of the neighbourhood and of the city, we will ensure the continuity of the pedagogical line oriented towards putting into practice the observation and dialogue in front of a work of art. The actions of the museum help to foster the access of the public to art and culture in its broadest sense, and pays special attention to those groups that have been traditionally excluded from the museum experience. As part of the work of approaching the museum to our most immediate surroundings, the Neighbourhood Projects have been developed, in which work is carried out with schools, high schools and sociocultural entities from the district of Ciutat Vella. This year, within the extensive calendar of activities, it is worth highlighting the sessions of Zoom. The collection under analysis in which various works from the collection are explored from two very different points of view: the art historian who contextualises the work within Picasso’s trajectory, and the artist who proposes an artistic exercise linked to the technique or the contents of the work; and the visits for people with visual and hearing disabilities, with the collaboration of the ONCE, ACCAPS and FESOCA, a new programme designed to make the Museum accessible for collectives with different disabilities with a methodology adapted so as to turn the visit into a space of culture, both for the people with diverse hearing and visual disabilities, as well as for their social and family surroundings.

Written by the museum