Picasso visits Madrid
If you are planning a trip to Madrid I have a recommendation for you. Make some time to visit the Reina Sofia Museum because is displaying 430 works by Pablo Picasso on loan from the National Picasso Museum in Paris in what will be one of the biggest ever retrospectives of his art. The Reina Sofia shows more than 400 paintings, sculptures, engravings, drawings, notebooks, ceramic art and even 20 photographs ranging from the legendary Spanish artist’s first portraits at the end of the 19th century to work from late 1972, shortly before his death in 1973.
The Reina Sofia contemporary art museum has been able to add to its stock of works by Pablo Picasso due to building work at the Musee National Picasso in Paris. A Spanish government grant of 3.5 million euros (2.6 million pounds) also made the exhibition possible. The French museum will use the period while the works are on loan to carry out building work.
“It is the first time that this many works leave the museum in Paris. You can only stage such an exhibition every 30 or 50 years,” the director of the Picasso Museum in Paris, Anne Baldassari, told journalists.
“This is the only one (exhibition) which shows his work from start to finish and across the range of works,” said Baldassari. “It presents a previously unseen concept of Picasso,” added Baldassari. “It has not been done before and will never be able to be done again.”
The retrospective will feature paintings, sculptures, engravings, drawings, photographs and ceramics by the artist from every stage of his career displayed in chronological order in three halls dedicated to temporary exhibitions and alongside works in the permanent collection such as ‘Guernica’, the emblematic painting depicting the horrors of Spain’s 1936-39 civil war.
The exhibition is divided into four periods. The first, from 1895-1924, covers Picasso’s first portraits, cubist and neo-classical works including “The Death of Casagemas,” one of the first in his “blue period”. The second period, 1924-1935, includes several surrealist sculptures by the artist born in the southern city of Malaga in 1881, such as “Heads” and “Bust of a Woman”. The 1933-1951 period places some of Picasso’s most famous works in the context of his preoccupation with the civil war, like “Woman Crying” and “The Supplicant”. The final 1947-1972 period covers exhibits ranging from “Picasso’s version of pop art”, in the words of museum curator Baldassari, to ceramics and sketchbooks.
The exhibition will run until May 5. The items on loan from the National Picasso Museum will then be put on display in museums in Australia, Canada, Finland, United Arab Emirates and the United States until late 2010.
More information
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
Dates: February, 6th 2008 – May, 5th 2008
Phone.: +34. 91.774.10.00
Fax: +34. 91.7741056
E-mail: direccion.mncars@cars.mcu.es
