The Picasso Museum – Eugenio Arias Collection, in Buitrago del Lozoya is scheduled to open in 2027. It houses drawings, ceramics, engravings, dedications and other personal objects given over 26 years by Picasso (1881-1973) to his friend and barber Eugenio Arias. Faithful to Eugenio Arias’ wish, this artistic treasure was donated in 1985 to the province of Madrid on the express condition that it be exhibited in his native village.
The museum will leave the basement of the town hall to move into a historic building in the central square of the village. The project, estimated at 3.5 million euros, involves a complete renovation of a casona (traditional residence) in the center, retaining its facade and exterior walls. Part of the attic will be removed to create a higher exhibition room, revealing the original wooden frame. In total, the new museum will offer nearly 400 m² of useful space on two levels: hall, public services, a multipurpose room and a documentation center on the ground floor, and a permanent exhibition upstairs.
The museography will be redesigned, while retaining the original theme centered on the friendship between Picasso and his barber. The route will exhibit the 75 works given by Picasso to Eugenio Arias. Other works linked to Picasso, such as a bust of the painter created by Fidel Aguilar, will complete this heterogeneous ensemble. At the end of the visit, an audiovisual space will present an explanatory film to place these objects in the personal and cultural history of the 20th century.
Exactly how many Picasso museums are there in the world? Barber in Buitrago, family in Malaga, friends in Barcelona, visit to Antibes or Vallauris. Each Picasso museum is born from a particular story of the artist. The Picasso Museum in Antibes has the distinction of having been the very first museum dedicated to Picasso, inaugurated in 1947. It occupies the Château Grimaldi, a medieval fortress overlooking the sea, where Picasso lived and worked during the fall of 1946. The museum presents an expanded collection of around 250 works, including ceramics and sculptures that the artist subsequently donated (23 paintings and 44 drawings), as well as works by artists who stayed in Antibes (Nicolas de Staël, Hans Hartung, etc.).
In Vallauris, the Pablo Picasso National Museum – War and Peace is a work of art. In the old chapel of the castle, Picasso installed an in situ ensemble which makes up the entire museum. The heart is made up of two monumental panels, War and Peace, painted in 1952 then installed in the chapel before the official inauguration in 1959. Around it, he adds a fresco, The Four Parts of the World, created in 1958 and definitively fixed in 1959. A museum reduced to the essential, almost to the sole presence of the artist in the space.
Inaugurated in 1985 in the Hôtel Salé, in the heart of the Marais, the Musée national Picasso-Paris houses the world’s largest public collection of works by Picasso. It preserves 297 paintings, 1,719 drawings and notebooks, 92 illustrated books, 2,370 prints, matrices and posters, 17,000 photographs and 200,000 archives. This collection comes mainly from the donation made by the Picasso heirs to the French State, in settlement of their inheritance rights. This profusion allows the museum to offer a complete journey, from the first academic paintings to the latest experiments of the 1970s.
Opened in 1963 during the artist’s lifetime, the Picasso Museum in Barcelona was built around the personal collection of Jaume Sabartés, Picasso’s close friend and secretary, to which the artist himself added significant donations (notably in 1970). Housed in five medieval palaces in the Born district, this museum now has 4,251 works by Picasso. Its specificity is to emphasize the years of training and youth of Picasso.
The Picasso Museum in Málaga, the artist’s hometown, opened its doors in 2003 in the Buenavista Palace, a 16th century Renaissance building restored for the occasion. Christine Ruiz-Picasso (daughter-in-law of the artist) and her son Bernard Picasso donated 133 works and lent 49 others on a long-term basis. Fulfilling Picasso’s old wish to one day see a museum in his hometown, the Picasso Museum Málaga offers a representative tour of all the eras of Picasso’s art.
Germany also has a museum entirely dedicated to Picasso. Opened in 2000 in the city of Münster (North Rhine-Westphalia), the Kunstmuseum Pablo Picasso specializes in the master’s graphic work. It houses more than 800 original lithographs by Picasso (almost all of his lithographed work). A large number of his linocuts and prints are also preserved. This collection comes from the fund brought together by a couple of German collectors, Gert and Jutta Huizinga.
In total, with the Buitrago museum, no less than 7 museums are dedicated to the genius of the 20th century, not counting the countless exhibitions.
