The son of an art teacher, young Pablo spent his formative years as an apprentice in this city. Despite his young age, during his years in Barcelona Pablo was already honing his craft and absorbing the culture of the city that would show up later in his mature work. While Picasso never returned to Spain for political reasons, it was Barcelona that Picasso considered his home and his inspiration long after he left. Les Demoiselle d'Avignon, Picasso's seminal painting that gave birth to Cubism, refers to the ladies of a brothel on Calle D'Avinyo, Barcelona.
The Picasso Museum focuses its collection on these early years. While the museum holds a handful of master works by this legendary Spaniard (most of those from his "blue" or "miserabilist" period) the majority of the more than 4,000 works in their collection clearly reinforce why young Pablo was destined to greatness. During our visit, the museum was featuring an exhibition titled "Yo Picasso," the first major exhibition of Picasso's self portraits spanning his entire career. Here are examples from 1901, 1903 and 1973.
The last rooms of the museum are devoted to a series of 58 paintings in which Picasso re-interpreted Diego Velázquez's iconic Las Meninas. Picasso worked on this series in 1957 and continued with these forms in a series of paintings of pigeons which he considered part of the series. Picasso saw this series as a whole and gave it as such to the museum in 1968. It is the only complete series of the artist that has remained together. For the Art Girls, these works were definitely the highlight of the museum's collection.
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| Diego Velázquez Las Meninas, 1656 and Pablo Picasso Las Meninas, 1957 |
The museum has a strict no photography policy. Karen was warned about taking these pix on her cell phone. The second time she was threatened with expulsion from the museum. Way to take one for the team!
The museum itself is comprised of five historic palau (palaces) from the 13th - 15th centuries joined together to form an amazing exhibition space of courtyards, arched windows and columns.
You can check out the museum's website for terrific interactive features about its collection, exhibitions or take a virtual tour of the building:
http://www.bcn.cat/museupicasso/en/museum/buildings.html
Along our tour of the Barri Gòtic, we also visited the historic Four Cats Cafe which was a sort of clubhouse for Barcelona's Bohemian set and where in 1900 Picasso had his first solo exhibition.
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| Our guide Teresa on the left. |
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| The Picasso frieze atop the College of Architecture |
