Picasso’s friends on vacation in Barcelona
Meanwhile Picasso visits Madrid, his friends are on vacation in Barcelona. The Museu Picasso in Barcelona presents Pablo Picasso’s personal collection of art works. There are over one hundred works - including some forty paintings by Renoir, Cézanne, Rousseau, Braque, Matisse and others - gathered together over a whole lifetime paints. You can visit this exhibition to the end of March.
Pablo Picasso’s personal collection was exhibited in Munich and in Paris in 1998 and 1999 and this is the first time it can be seen in Spain. The nature of this collection is unique and personal. “My friends”: is the way in which Picasso referred to his collection. “After all, why shouldn’t one inherit from their friends?”, he confessed one day to his dealer, Kahnweiler. “In essence, what is a painter? A collector who wants to make a collection by doing paintings that he likes by others”.
This collection is not the fruit of a deliberate or pre-established project. Art works were added to the mess of his successive art studios, thrown on the floor haphazardly, framed or unframed, in the midst of his own paintings, or hung on the wall in a disorderly fashion without there ever existing the intention of putting any of them on show to the general public. In some ways, this collection forms the “backgrounds” to his own art studios.
Picasso wanted to donate this collection to the French State on condition that it was kept intact. When he died, his heirs respected his will. The Picasso Museum in Paris is home to the essential parts of this collection, added to by other works that were donated later by heirs.
You can take a look at the exhibition here.
More information
Picasso and his collection
From 20th December 2007 to 30th March 2008
Museu Picasso
Montcada 15-23
08003- Barcelona
Phone: (+34) 93 256 30 00
Fax: (+34) 93 315 01 02
E-mail: museupicasso@bcn.cat
Opening hours
Tuesday to Sunday (including Bank Holidays): 10:00 am to 8:00 pm
Last admittance to rooms 30 minutes before closing time
Closed Mondays except Bank Holidays
Bank Holiday Monday open in 2008 during the exhibition dates: March 24
Annual closing days during the exhibition dates: December 25 and 26, January 1
