picasso portraits

Barcelona’s Picasso Museum will add 1,150 m² for exhibitions this 2017. This new area will be located on the second floor of the ‘Palau de les Finestres’, one of the five buildings composing the museum, which has been undergoing refurbishment. The Picasso Museum currently occupies five large town houses on Montcada street, in Barcelona’s old town, dating from between the 13^th and the 15^th century. During the presentation of the museum’s programme for this year, the Picasso Museum’s new director, Emmanuel Guigon, also announced that this year’s major exhibition will be ‘Picasso Portraits’, co-produced with London’s National Portrait Gallery, which will be displayed from March until June. There will also be three smaller exhibitions this 2017, some of them to be hosted in the restored area at the ‘Palau de les Finestres’.

The National Portrait Gallery in London, in collaboration with the Barcelona Picasso Museum, has set up one of the most comprehensive collections dedicated to Picasso´s portraiture ever created. In London, more than 75 works of art will show each of the artist´s phases and varying techniques, a testament to “his unique vision”. Exhibition curator Elizabeth Cowling noted that it has “never ever been done before” to show the artist´s work in a museum “dedicated entirely to portraiture”. Furthermore, this is the first time that the London museum will feature portraits of figures that aren’t British. The exhibition will later be held in Barcelona, where the collection will be extended by five pieces, one of which will be lent by the Art Institute of Chicago for the first time.