The Museu Picasso turns 50, to celebrate, it presents three documentary exhibitions that attest to the museum's signs of identity: its origin, its collection, and the shows it has brought to the public.
The first exhibition, titled Origins, will be open March 9th through June 9th, 2013. It will present Barcelona's Museu Picasso as the most evident sign of the artist's emotional connection to the city.
Established by Picasso's wishes, the museum is the fruit of a collective effort: Picasso's personal secretary and great friend Jaume Sabartés; his wife, Jacqueline Picasso; Barcelona society; and the Barcelona Municipal Government, which in the midst of the Franco regime brought to fruition the artist's dream of a monographic museum in the city he loved.
The second exhibition, The Collection, will be open July 4th through October 20th, 2013. It will explore the way in which the Museu Picasso's collection has taken shape over the years thanks, especially, to great donatives by the artist and by Jaume Sabartés, but also thanks to generous contributions by private collectors and by the Picasso estate, as well as relevant acquisitions made by the Barcelona city government. The collection revolves around two main axis: on the one hand, formative and youth works by Picasso; on the other, the Las Meninas series, of 1957. These two characteristics give the museum its particularity, allowing a study of the artist's early, formative work in a single location, and presenting Picasso's only series featuring his interpretation of another artist's work, created in the 1950s and 1960s.
Finally, the anniversary celebrations will close with The Exhibitions, November 14th, 2013 through February 16th 2014. This is a journey through Picasso's work on exhibit at the museum, as well as a tribute to the artist, his teachers, and the various artists of the same period also on exhibit in the museum's galleries. It is also a journey through the history of the institution, the city, and local society. The exhibition wants to revalorize the effort of Museu Picasso to bring to the public important works by Picasso and his era, and reveal the way in which social and cultural shifts were reflected in how the art is displayed, always in didactic and appealing ways.
Source: Museu Picasso