Museo Picasso Barcelona - Picasso Museum Barcelona

About Barcelona Picasso Museum

The Picasso Museum of Barcelona, opened on 9 March 1963 is an expansive permanent Picasso collection of over 4000 works housed within 5 adjacent medieval palaces in Montcada Street in the fashionable Born District of Barcelona.

Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 - 8 April 1973) was a prolific Spanish painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramicist and theatre designer who's work can be divided into periods.

The architecture of the Picasso Museum

The Picasso Museum is actually an amalgamation of five large mansion houses (or minor palaces!) of former medieval 13th and 14th century wealthy merchants in Montcada street of the Born Neighbourhood of Barcelona with a total space of over ten thousand square metres.

All five palaces are in the style of Gothic Catalan and follow the same layout of a central open courtyard with external stairs to the first floor (or noble floor). The ground floor was stables and storage space.

• Palau Berenguer d'Aguilar - Carrer de Montcada 15: The first building occupied by the museum. Between the 13th and 14th centuries the building belonged to various nobles of the Court of Aragon. It was purchased in 1386 by the bourgeois family Corominas-Despla, who then sold it fourteen years later to Berenguer Aguilar, from which the palace is named. Later owners included several members of the Catalan bourgeoisie prior to the building's purchase by the City Council on 3 November 1953.
• Casa del Baró de Castellet - Carrer de Montcada 17: 13th Century medieval palace owned by the Gerona family during the 15th century. Changed hands between the bourgeois and aristocratic families of Barcelona till 1797 when owner Mariano Alegre Aparici Amat received the noble title of Baron de Castellet at the hands of King carlos IV of Spain, giving the palace its name. Upon the death of the Baron, the building was bequeathed to the Hospital of the Holy Cross, who rented it to different tenants until they sold it to the Rivers family. The City Council then purchased the building in the 1950s.
• Palacio Meca - Carrer de Montcada 19: From 13 and 14th Century and remodelled in the 18th century. In 1349 the palace was owned by Jaume Cavaller (Minister of the City Council) who's daughter married The politician Ramon Despla who's son, Ramon Despla Cavaller converted it to the largest palace on the block. The building later became the property of the family of Cassador, Marquis of Ciutadilla with Josep Meca i Cassador giving the palace its name. The next family to own it, the Milans, restored the building after it was bombarded in the 1714 War of Spanish Succession. In 1901, came the Hermanos de la Doctrina Cristiana and Montepio of Santa Madrona religious oorders. Montepio became a bank who ceded the palace to the City Council on 5 December 1977. The Palace was reopened as part of the museum on 11 January 1982.
• Casa Mauri - Carrer de Montcada 21: Between 1378 and 1516 the building was owned by the Rocha family and in 1716 it was owned by F. Casamada. During the 19th century renovations were made by the owner Josep Vidal Torrents with the building being industrial. In 1943 the building was bought by Mauri bakeries until being acquired by Museu Picasso in 1999.
• Palau Finestres - Carrer de Montcada 23: built on the foundations of a building dating to the 13th century and occupies a former Roman necropolis. Between 1363 and 1516 the area belonged to the Marimon family. In 1872, the owner of Casa Mauri, Josep Vidal Torrents, bought the building in order to annex it to his home. The City acquired the building in 1970.

Visiting Barcelona Picasso Museum

When you visit the museum you will find several large rooms that retain the palatial decoration and ceiling frescoes so do not forget to look up.

The museum is well organised into different rooms that display works from the many periods of Picasso's life as an artist. Each room has a plaque about that period as well as a complete audio guide so don't forget to take headphones.

It is permitted to take photos for personal use without flash but not for publishing without prior written permission so I cannot post a large gallery of photos from inside the museum.

Barcelona Picasso Museum opening hours

• Tuesday to Sunday including public holidays: 10:00h to 19:00h
• Closed: Mondays, 1st January, 1st May, 24th June, 25th December
• 5th January: 10:00h to 17:00h. 24th and 31st December: 10:00h to 14:00h

Barcelona Picasso Museum Tickets

It is also possible to visit the museum fee of charge on Thursday afternoons from 16:00h to 19:00h and the first Sunday of each month. The Museum also hosts open door days on 12th and 13th February, 18th May and 24th September.

I have tried to visit the Picasso Museum for free on several occasions and observed long queue's all the way up Montcada street and so decided to give it a miss. Also because of the high demand for free visits they must be booked up to four days in advance via the official website.

I Visited the museum on a Wednesday at lunchtime (13:30h) paying for an adult ticket in the ticket office, no pre booking. The museum was not over crowded and I could view all the art with plenty of time to enjoy the museum without the pressures of crowd herding, waiting or forced pace flow control. It is my opinion that this is one of the museums where it is best to book in advance and go really early or at lunchtime to get the best museum experience due to its popularity.

The cost of a basic ticket starts from 12 € but it is worth paying 19 € to include the temporary exhibitions. Tickets can be purchased online via the Picasso Museum official website.

To fully understand Picasso's life and works I recommend a more personalised guided tour.

What do you get to see in the Barcelona Picasso Museum?

Below is a brief biography of Pablo Picasso which will give insight into his life and what you will see in the Picasso Museum in Barcelona.

Pablo Picasso's childhood and upbringing

• 1881: 25th October, Pablo Ruiz Picasso was born in Malaga, Andalusia, in southern Spain and was the first child of Don Jose Ruiz y Blasco (1838-1913) and Maria Picasso y Lopez. His father was a painter who specialised in naturalistic depictions of birds and other game. For most of his life, Ruiz was a professor of art at the School of Crafts and a curator of a local museum. Ruiz's ancestors were minor aristocrats.
• 1891: Picasso began training under his father at a very early age and his work from this period can be seen at the Picasso Museum such as the pigeon collection and portraits of family members. The family moved to La Coruna for four years from 1891 where his father became a professor at the San Telmo School of Fine Arts and where Pablo Picasso starts his art studies in 1892. On one occasion, Pablo Ruiz found his son painting over his unfinished sketch of a pigeon!
• 1895: the Picasso family suffered the loss of their daughter from diphtheria. After her death, the family moved to Barcelona, where Jose Ruiz y Blasco took a position at a School of Fine Arts. Pablo Ruiz Picasso thrived in the city passing the exam to enter the advanced class at the Llotja School of fine arts aged only 13. His father rented a small room for him close to home so he could work alone checking up on him numerous times a day. Man in a Beret
• 1897: Picasso's father and uncle decided to send the young artist to Madrid's Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, the country's foremost art school at age 16. Picasso disliked formal instruction and stopped attending classes soon after enrollment. Madrid held many other attractions such as The Prado museum which Pablo Picasso visited frequently.
• 1898: Pablo Picaso falls ill with scarlet fever. he returns to Barcelona and stays in Horta de Sant Joan near the Aragon border in the Tarragona region at the invitation of his friend Manuel Pallares. You can see artwork from this period in the Barcelona picasso Museum.

Pablo Picasso as Young adult in Paris

• 1898: he signed his works as "Pablo Ruiz Picasso", then as "Pablo R. Picasso" until 1901. In Spanish a child's surnames are first from the father and second from the mother so Pablo using his mothers surname as his artists name might seem a rejection of his father but he wanted to distinguish himself from other artists and because his friends in Barcelona often referred to him by his maternal surname.
• 1900: Pablo Ruiz Picasso travelled to Paris, then the art capital of Europe. He met his first Parisian friend, journalist and poet Max Jacob, who helped Picasso learn French and French literature. Soon they shared an apartment where Max slept at night while Picasso slept during the day and worked at night. These were times of severe poverty and cold. Much of his work was burned to keep the small room warm.
• 1901: During the first five months of 1901, Picasso lived in Madrid, where he and his anarchist friend Francisco de Asis Soler founded the magazine Arte Joven (Young Art) publishing five issues. Picasso illustrated the magazine, mostly contributing grim cartoons depicting and sympathising with the state of the poor. The first issue was published on 31 March 1901. In the Barcelona picasso Museum you will find a copy of Arte Joven.

• Picasso's Blue Period (1901-1904) characterised by paintings rendered in shades of blue and blue-green only.

  Picasso's Rose Period (1904-1906) characterised by a lighter tone and style utilising orange and pink colours and featuring many circus people, acrobats and harlequins known in France as saltimbanques.

  Picasso's African-influenced Period (1907-1909) being powerfully impressed by African artefacts he saw in June 1907 in the ethnographic museum at Palais du Trocadero in Paris.

  Analytic cubism (1909-1912) is a style of painting Picasso developed with Georges Braque using monochrome brownish and neutral colours.

  Synthetic cubism (1912-1919) was a further development of the genre of cubism, in which cut paper fragments of wallpaper or newspaper pages were pasted into compositions marking the first use of collage in fine art.

  A maturing Pablo Picasso

  Picasso was living in France During the first world war but made his first trip to Italy in 1917. Picasso produced work in a neoclassical style being influenced by the painters Raphael and Ingres.

  The Great Depression to MoMA exhibition (1930-1939) During the 1930s the Minotaur replaced the harlequin as a common motif in his work. His use of the Minotaur came partly from his contact with the surrealists, who often used it as their symbol.

  In 1939 and 1940 the Museum of Modern Art in New York City held a major retrospective of Picasso's principal works. This exhibition lionized Picasso, brought into full public view in America the scope of his artistry, and resulted in a reinterpretation of his work by contemporary art historians and scholars.

  During World War two Picasso remained in Paris while the Germans occupied the city. Picasso's artistic style did not fit the Nazi ideal of art and so was not exhibited and he was often harassed by the Gestapo. The Germans outlawed bronze casting in Paris (war material shortages) but Picasso continued using bronze smuggled to him by the French Resistance.

  Picasso also wrote poetry as an alternative outlet writing over three hundred mostly untitled poems between Between 1935 and 1959 as well as two full-length plays.

  In 1944 after the liberation of Paris Picasso, then 63 years old, began a romantic relationship with a young art student named Francoise Gilot. She was 40 years younger than he was. Picasso and Gilot began to live together eventually having two children but Francoise and the children left Picasso because of his many infidelities. This was a huge blow to Picasso.

  Pablo Picasso's Later works to final years

  Picasso was one of 250 sculptors who exhibited in the 3rd Sculpture International held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in mid-1949.

  In addition to his artistic accomplishments, Picasso made a few film appearances, always as himself, including a cameo in Jean Cocteau's Testament of Orpheus (1960). In 1955, he helped make the film Le Mystere Picasso

  In 1962 he was commissioned to make a 15 metre high public sculpture to be built in Chicago known as the Chicago Picasso. The sculpture is ambiguous and controversial and what it represents is not known. The sculpture was unveiled in 1967. Picasso refused to be paid $100,000 for it, donating it to the people of the city.

  Picasso's final works were a mixture of styles, more daring and more colourful and expressive. From 1968 to 1971 he produced a torrent of paintings and hundreds of copperplate etchings. At the time these works were dismissed by most as pornographic fantasies of an impotent old man or the slapdash works of an artist who was past his prime but have since gained critical acclaim.

  Personal life of Pablo Picasso

  Picasso had affairs with women of an even greater age disparity than his and Gilot's. In 1951 Picasso had a six-week affair with Genevieve Laporte, four years younger than Gilot even though he was still involved with Gilot. By his 70s many paintings, ink drawings and prints have a theme of an old grotesque dwarf as the doting lover of a beautiful young model.

  Jacqueline Roque (1927-1986) worked at the Madoura Pottery in Vallauris on the French Riviera where Picasso made and painted ceramics. She became his lover, and then his second wife in 1961 remaining with Picasso for the rest of his life. His marriage to Roque was also a means of revenge against Gilot. Picasso encouraged Gillot to divorce her then husband to marry Picasso though he had already secretly married Roque.

  By this time, Picasso had constructed a huge Gothic home, and could afford large villas in the south of France such as Mas Notre-Dame-de-Vie on the outskirts of Mougins and in the Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur. He was an international celebrity, with often as much interest in his personal life as his art.

  Picasso died on 8 April 1973 aged 91 in Mougins, France from a pulmonary edema and heart failure while he and his wife Jacqueline entertained friends for dinner. He is interred at the Chateau of Vauvenargues near Aix-en-Provence, a property he had acquired in 1958 and occupied with Jacqueline between 1959 and 1962. Devastated and lonely after the death of Picasso, Jacqueline killed herself by gunshot in 1986 when she was 59 years old.

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