Madrid, February 2008

Reina Sofia hosts unique Picasso exhibition

More than 400 Picasso artworks from the Musée National Picasso Paris, covering the major creative periods of the artist's career, will begin a worldwide tour at Museo Nacional Reina Sofía in Madrid on February 6th.  An audioguide with comments of Anne Baldassari, Director of the Picasso Museum and Curator of the exhibition, explains that  “this is a genuine retrospective…we are able to follow Picasso’s own trajectory, his search, the development of his awareness, and his discoveries, through his paintings, sculptures and drawings. It is an experience that offers something that is both fragile and remarkable”. Insights from André Villiers, photographer, friend and colleague of Picasso takes visitors on an intimate and personal journey through Picasso's creative periods, from 1901 up through the 60’s.

This exhibition also permits us to see works from the Paris museum that relate to Picasso’s famous masterpiece, Guernica, considered the symbol of the Spanish Civil War, that was sent to Spain in 1981 and definitively hung in the Reina Sofia Museum only after Franco had died, as had been Picasso’s wish.. There are other paintings representing the sacrifice and death incurred by war. Paul Daix, leading expert on Picasso’s life and work explains in the audioguide that “Picasso’s wish to fight against the war was a stronger feeling than any other (...) This was a constant in him. When he felt upset he used to say: “Painting is not made to decorate apartments. It’s a weapon and we must use it”. The audioguide is provided in English, Spanish French, Italian and German.

The fact that the paintings on loan from Paris were part of Picasso’s own private collection that was inherited by his family means that we have a unique opportunity to see many self portraits, portraits of the most important women in his life: Fernande, Germaine, Olga, Marie Therèse, Dora Maar, Françoise Gilot, Jacqueline, as well as his children. All of these people contributed to the formation of the collection of the Museum Picasso Paris when, in lieu of paying inheritance taxes, they donated to the French cultural heritage a large number of paintings, sculptures, ceramics, drawings, collages, engravings, and illustrated notebooks, the most important of which are on display at the Reina Sofia until May 5. The exhibition will then travel on to China and Japan.

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