Museo Picasso Malaga

The Building

The Palacio de Buenavista houses the Collection of Museo Picasso Málaga. It is located in the heart of the old city, and the building is a magnificent example of 16thcentury Andalusian architecture with its characteristic mixture of Renaissance and Mudéjar elements.

The Palacio de Buenavista was built for Diego de Cazalla, paymaster of the royal army and navy, who took part in the conquest of the city in 1487. It is believed that the building was erected over the remains of a Nasrid palace of which some elements still survive, such as the tower to the east of the main courtyard.

Diego de Cazalla made every effort in the construction of the building. Italian and Mudejar elements join together in this sober and elegant building. By the 19th century the palace had became less of a family residence and instead began to assume other roles.

Declared a national monument in 1939, the palace was rented to the State in 1946 to house the Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes, which opened in 1961. The museum remained there until 1997 when the building was acquired to display the collection of the future Museo Picasso Málaga. This choice reflected the express desire of the principal donor, Christine Ruiz-Picasso, who envisioned the collection to be exhibited in a typically Andalusian building.

In order to accomodate the temporary exhibition galleries, the MPM Library and Documentation Centre, the Education Department and the Auditorium, various adjoining buildings were adapted and built, all of which were harmoniously integrated into the site of the palace and its surrounding urban context.

The remodelling and expansion project of the Palacio de Buenavista was led by Richard Gluckman of Gluckman Mayner Architects with Isabel Cámara and Rafael Martín Delgado of Cámara/ Martín Delgado Arquitectos, working with the engineers ARUP. The landscape was conceived by María Medina.

In 2006 the American Institute of Architects awarded the MPM the Institute’s Honor Award for Architecture. The jury commented: “This is a beautiful job of restoration architecture… It is appropriately modest, weaving a museum into the fabric of this Mediterranean city… New portions were simply and elegantly inserted in and around the 16th century castle, the outdoor courtyards and the city streets.”

From 14 Mar. 2017, the rooms housing Museo Picasso Málaga’s permanent collection are refreshed, and more visitorfriendly and informative about Pablo Picasso’s work. The new design is predominantly chronological, showing how the artist’s work stretched over a period of time. It also points out its intrinsic versatility and the cyclical nature of his artistic investigations, drawing attention to his constant vocation for exploring the expressive possibilities of any medium.

The exhibition narrative is the result of the close collaboration between Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte (FABA), which for the next three years will be contributing with a selection of 166 works from their holdings. Among the works that are being incorporated into the new layout are Restaurant (1914), an exceptional oil painting that has been cut out and stuck onto glass, and which is shown here for the very first time; The Three Graces, a large canvas that shows a more classical and monumental Picasso; and the iconic bronze, Head of a Bull (1942), made from the seat and handlebars of a bicycle. Along with the rest of the works on display, they give shape to an exhibition narrative that starts with the artist’s formative years, continues with the great stylistic and thematic moments of his career – cubism, the Mediterranean, portraiture – and ends with his reinterpretation of the great masters, all of them with that combination of talent, technique and expression that made Picasso the great artist of the 20th-century. See a selection of works.

Pablo Picasso. New Collection has also the support of Fundación Endesa, which joins the project through an agreement of collaboration and sponsorship that will allow an improvement in lighting in the galleries of Palacio de Buenavista.

History of the Collection

Museo Picasso Málaga was created in response to Pablo Picasso’s own desire for his work to be present in the city where he was born on 25 October 1881. The museum was created thanks to Christine and Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, the artist’s daughter-in-law and grandson, whose donations constitute the core of the Collection. It was also made possible thanks to the efforts of the Junta de Andalucía, which coordinated the major project of setting up a museum devoted to the artist whose styles and techniques changed the course of modern art.

The initial idea for the museum arose in 1953, as a result of the contact between Pablo Picasso and Juan Temboury Álvarez, who was the Provincial Delegate for Fine Arts in Malaga. However, the project fell through shortly afterwards.

Christine Ruiz-Picasso, the widow of the artist’s eldest son, Paul Ruiz-Picasso, resumed contact with Malaga in 1992, during the exhibition Picasso Clásico(Classic Picasso), and again in 1994, during the exhibition Picasso, primera mirada, (Picasso, the first glimpse). In 1996, she rekindled the 1953 project, which finally came into being 50 years later on 27 October 2003, when the museum was officially opened by Their Majesties King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofía of Spain.

Archaeological site

The ground beneath Museo Picasso Málaga preserves important evidence of the city’s roots in the past. The exceptional Phoenician, Roman and Moorish remains, as well as those of the Renaissance palace, show the visitor fragments of Malaga’s history, dating back to the seventh century B.C.

Below the ground at the Palacio de Buenavista, important evidence has been found of the first beginnings of Malaga, one of the most ancient cities in the Western world, with almost 3,000 years of uninterrupted occupation. The excavations have revealed exceptional archaeological remains, which show the presence of life in Phoenician, Roman, Arab and Renaissance times.

Malaka was founded by the Phoenicians around the 8th Century B.C. on the lower slopes of the Mount of the Alcazaba. From the beginning the population developed an intense metallurgical activity, and produced Tyrian purple, as well as salted meat and fish.

From the 6th century B.C., the Punics dominated the city until the Romans conquered it after the Second Punic War (end of the 3rd century B.C.), when it was named Malaca. It was integrated into one of the Roman provinces and kept its privileges as federal city. The significant development of the fishing industry consolidated its commercial character. When the Roman Empire dissolved, the Visigoths came to dominate these territories. The city fell into decline, with the only exception of the Byzantine period, when it played a crucial role, probably as Imperial capital.

In 711, the city fell into the hands of the Arabs and came to be part of the Cordoba Emirate. Some time later, from the 10th Century onwards, it became prominent again amid the Southern peninsula towns as first harbour of the Moorish kingdom of Granada, from where major merchandises were shipped. The Catholic Monarchs conquered Malaga in 1487.

From 25th February to 2nd June 2019, Museo Picasso Málaga will be examining the life and background of Olga Khokhlova, Pablo Picasso’s first wife, in the first show of its 2019 exhibition calendar. Olga Picasso looks at the years they spent together, putting into perspective the creation of some of Picasso’s greatest works and reconstructing this body of work in the context of a personal story that developed alongside another political and social one. Picasso’s model par excellence, his imagined figure of Olga underwent a metamorphosis during the years of upheaval in Europe between the wars, as their relationship gradually deteriorated. Some 350 pieces will be on display, comprising paintings, works on paper, documents, letters, photographs and films.

The exhibition is jointly curated by Émilia Philippot, conservator at Musée national Picasso - Paris; Joachim Pissarro, professor of art history and director of Hunter College Art Gallery (New York); and Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, co-chair of Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte, FABA. The exhibition was shown at the Museé national Picasso-Paris from March 21 to September 3, 2017. It will displayed at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow from November 19, 2018 to February 4, 2019, before travelling to Museo Picasso Málaga. The last venue will be Caixa Forum Madrid next September 2019.

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