Barcelona’s Picasso Museum to focus on Blue Period in 2022

It was one of the most iconic creative periods of Spanish painter Pablo Picasso’s career, and through 2022 it will be the main attraction at Barcelona’s Picasso Museum. 

Cubist artist Picasso’s Blue Period lasted from 1901 to 1904. At the time, the Spaniard dedicated his time to painting monochromatic pictures, essentially using shades of the color blue.

After a thorough investigation by the museum’s conservation and restoration department with several other researchers, ‘Picasso blue project‘ will showcase detailed research of Picasso’s paintings during one of the most famous phases of the painter’s career. 

The exhibit will open in April and with another simultaneous exhibition taking place in Madrid, ‘The young Picasso formation,’ that will display paintings from the early stages of his life.   

The Barcelona museum will also exhibit several engravings from French historian Brigitte Baer as well as Lucien Clergue's photographs. These expositions will start in summer and will feature some 600 photographs that will shed new light on the artist’s life. 

The year will close with a new exhibition on Picasso’s biographer and friend, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. 

50th anniversary of Picasso’s death

Picasso passed away in France on April 8, 1973. In anticipation of the 50th anniversary of his passing, the museum is planning a special exhibit to commemorate the date and his life. 

The exposition ‘Miró-Picasso’ will examine the relationship between the Catalan cubist painter Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso. 

The Spanish painter will be remembered throughout the country, thus the museum is also "making all efforts" to be part of the celebration, as explained by museum director Emmanuel Guigon at a press conference on Wednesday. 

The specifics of these efforts, however, are not yet known. The museum is not revealing their plans, but so far, there will be a tour looking at the relationship between Barcelona and Picasso that will be available from early 2023. 

Back to normality

Last year, the Picasso Museum welcomed 300,000 visitors, around 50% more than in 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

However, before 2020, the museum used to open its doors to around 1 million people in a year. 

Current expectations place summer 2022 as the turning point for the Picasso Museum in Barcelona when visitor levels will reach those in 2019.