Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
PICASSO IN BARCELONA
Although born in Málaga,
PabloPicasso
(1881-1973) spent much of his youth - from the
age of 14 to 23 - in Barcelona. He maintained close links with the city and his Catalan
friendsevenwhenheleftforParisin1904,andissaidtohavealwaysthoughtofhimselfas
Catalan rather than
andaluz
. The time Picasso spent in Barcelona encompassed the whole
of his Blue Period (1901-04) and provided many of the formative influences on his art.
Apart from the Museu Picasso, there are echoes of the great artist at various sites
throughouttheoldtown.Nottoofarfromthemuseum, youcanstill seemanyofthebuild-
ings in which Picasso lived and worked, notably the
Escola de Belles Arts de Llotja
(c/
Consolat del Mar, near Estació de França), where his father taught drawing and where
Picasso himself absorbed an academic training. The
apartments
where the family lived
when they first arrived in Barcelona - Pg. d'Isabel II 4 and c/Reina Cristina 3, both near
the Escola - can also be seen, though only from the outside, while Picasso's first real
stu-
dio
(in 1896) was located over on c/de la Plata at no. 4. A few years later, many of his
BluePeriodworkswerefinishedatastudioatc/delComerç28.Hisfirst
publicexhibition
was in 1901 at
ElsQuatreGats
tavern (see
Boho Barcelona and the Four Cats
)
. The other
place to retain a link with Picasso is
c/d'Avinyó
in the Barri Gòtic, which cuts south from
c/de Ferran to c/Ample. Large houses along here were converted into brothels at the end of
the nineteenth century, and Picasso used to haunt the street sketching what he saw. Some
accounts of his life - based on Picasso's own testimony, it has to be said - claim that he
had his first sexual experience here at the age of 14, and certainly the women at one of the
brothels inspired his seminal Cubist work,
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
.
The collection
The museum opened in 1963 with a collection based largely on the donations of Jaime
Sabartes, longtime friend and former secretary to the artist. On Sabartes' death in 1968, Pi-
casso himself added a large number of works - above all, the works of the Meninas series -
andin1970hedonatedafurthervastnumberofwatercolours,drawings,printsandpaintings.
Theworksonshowareextremelywelllaidout,astheyfollowtheartist'sdevelopmentchro-
nologically, with the early periods by far the best represented.
Early works and Blue Period
The
earlydrawings
,particularly,arefascinating,inwhichPicasso-stillsigningwithhisfull
name, Pablo Ruiz Picasso - attempted to copy the nature paintings in which his father spe-
cialized. Works from his
art school
days in Barcelona (1895-97) show tantalizing glimpses
of the city that the young Picasso was beginning to know well - the Gothic old town, the
cloisters of Sant Paul del Camp, Barceloneta beach - and even at the ages of 15 and 16 he
was producing serious works, including knowing self-portraits and a closely observed study
