When it seemed that after the Picasso Celebration, which made the Malaga native the king of the art scene with a multitude of exhibitions around the world, everything had already been said, it turns out that there is still much to explore. For example, her relationship with Fernande Olivier, her first great love, whom she met in 1904 when Picasso was not yet Picasso, and she was an aspiring painter who worked as a model in the bohemian environments of Montmartre. They shared a house-studio in Bateau-Lavoir, where they lived miserably; They adopted a girl, Raymonde, who they later returned to the orphanage, and maintained a tumultuous relationship marked by the insatiable appetites of the painter, a possessive, jealous, self-absorbed lover who was turning the history of art on its head with The Young Ladies of Avignon. Together they traveled to Catalonia, Horta de Sant Joan, Gósol, Cadaqués…
Fernande Olivier, author of the memoirs, Intimate Memories (written for Picasso), which came to light in full in 1988 after the intervention of Picasso’s lawyers, then already a world-famous painter, truncated its publication in chapters in 1930. in the Belgian newspaper Le Soir, will be one of the protagonists of the Museu Picasso’s new exhibition year. An unprecedented exhibition, the first dedicated to Olivier in Spain, which will arrive in June by Malén Gual and, in addition to those of Picasso himself, will include portraits of artists such as Kees van Dongen, Joaquín Sunyer and Ubaldo Oppi. The first time she saw him in his study, Olivier described him as “short, squat, with woman’s hands, black, penetrating, almost obsessive eyes.”
It will be, together with From Montmatre to Montparnasse (1889-1914), which for the first time offers a choral portrait of the two generations of Catalan artists who passed through the French capital (starting in November), the great commitment of the Picasso Museum after a exceptional year in which, thanks to exhibitions such as the one dedicated to Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler and the current Miró-Picasso (those who have not yet seen it, still have one last chance until the 25th of this month) it exceeded one million visitors (350,000 which were for Carmen Calvo’s) and, most importantly, it went from 3% of the local audience to the record figure of 16%.
While waiting for the exhibition that in 2025 will explore Picasso’s relationship with La Main à Plume, a group of the French Resistance against the Nazi occupation, which Picasso helped financially and with whose magazine he collaborated, the Barcelona museum will remember the centenary of the surrealism with two exhibitions on the collages of Aube Breton-Elléouët, the daughter of André Breton, author of the first surrealist manifesto, and the reconstruction of the Picasso exhibition organized by the ADLAN group in the Sala Esteva in 1936. Before, in March, it will organize yet another exhibition dedicated to the photographer Bernard Plossu, who followed in Picasso’s footsteps through Catalonia.
Beyond the exhibitions, director Emmanuel Guigon, who renewed his position for another two years at the end of 2023, will design a new presentation of the collection, “more visual and dynamic”, with a new ceramics room and occasional guests from the Prado Museum, such as Velázquez’s The Child of Vallecas. More news: the patio will be rearranged, which will have a visitor reception space, a restaurant will open and a firm commitment to public programs will be made, under the leadership of its new manager, Tonina Cerdà. The museum also incorporates Núria Homs as its new curator, who for decades has held this position at the Fundació Tàpies
