Spain Guide
Andalucía
Museo Picasso Málaga
Address: c/San Agustín, just around the corner from the cathedral
Opening time: Tues– Sun 10am–8pm
Price: Permanent collection €6, temporary collection €4.50; combined ticket €8;
Website: www.museopicassomalaga.org
Housed in the elegant sixteenth-century mansion of the counts of Buenavista, the Museo Picasso Málaga opened in 2003, 112 years after Picasso left Málaga at the age of 10. He returned only once, for an unhappy, fleeting visit in his late teens. In later life, he toyed with the idea of "sending two lorries full of paintings" to set up a museum in Málaga but vowed never to set foot in Spain while Franco was still alive.
The permanent collection consists of 204 works donated by the artist's daughter-in-law and grandson, while the temporary collection comprises loaned works and special exhibitions (not necessarily connected with Picasso). Though not on a par with the Picasso museums in Paris and Barcelona, the museum does hold lesser-known works that Picasso kept for himself or gave away to his lovers, family and friends – harshly described as the "less saleable stuff" by one critic.
Among highlights are, in Room 2, Olga Koklova con Mantilla (a portrait of his first wife, draped in a hotel tablecloth) and a moving portrait of his son Paul, painted in 1923. Other rooms have canvases from the breadth of Picasso's career including his Blue, Pink and Cubist periods, as well as sculptures in wood, metal and stone and a few ceramics. Two other influential women are also the subject of powerful images: in Room 5, Cabeza de Mujer 1939 is a portrait of the beguiling yet tragic Dora Maar, and in Room 8, Jacqueline Sentada is a seated representation of his second wife, Jacqueline Roque.
An unexpected surprise lies in the basement – archeological remains revealed during the construction of the building. These include substantial chunks of a seventh-century BC Phoenician city wall and tower, which date from the and would have protected these early colonists from attacks by the Iberian tribes. From later periods there are parts of a Roman salazones factory used to produce the famous garum, a fish-based sauce and Roman delicacy.