In the fifties, during his life in Vallauris, in the south of France, together with what was then his partner, the painter Françoise Gilot, mother of his children Claude and Paloma, Picasso discovered ceramics and recovered his love of bullfighting. . Every year he organized an exhibition with his latest works and a bullfight, to which he invited friends and acquaintances, and he himself was in charge of making the posters announcing the event. A good part of those posters were collected by his closest friends, to whom the artist used to sign dedications. Among them was the architect Xavier Busquets (Barcelona, ??1917-1990), who bequeathed them to the Museu de Montserrat after his death.
A sample of sixteen bullfighting posters by Picasso can be seen until January 6 at the Espai d’art Pere Pruna of the Museu de Montserrat (MdM), which resumes its exhibition activity after the pandemic. The exhibition, Picasso in the Busquets donation, brings to light a part of the legacy that Xavier Busquets left in the Monastery in 1990, which included everything from archaeological pieces to works by the great names of Impressionism and Catalan painting. But among all the artists that made up his collection, Picasso was the best represented. That is why now, coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the man from Malaga, the museum has wanted to pay a double tribute.
Busquets, a collector with an eclectic taste, was the author of the Col legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya (COAC) building and established a relationship with Picasso after he was commissioned to design the large murals that decorate the façade and some interior rooms. In a way, that work signifies the artist’s return to the city and was also the beginning of a great friendship that explains the artist’s extensive presence in his collection. The exhibition curated by Montserrat Marín, curator of the museum, has numerous photographs and documents related to the donation, as well as books, images or press articles that contextualize the different areas: the arrival of the donation, Picasso’s years in the southern France, where he settled after World War II (first in Antibes and later in Vallauris, Cannes and Mougins) and interest in Picasso’s work in Barcelona, ??through the promotion of the Sala Gaspar.
In fact, it was through their mutual friendship with the publisher Gustavo Gili and the gallery owners Gaspar that Busquets was able to reach Picasso. During the process of making the sgraffito, Busquets frequently visited the artist and, taking advantage of his trips to the castle of Vauvenargues and later to Notre-Dame-de-Vie, he gathered the linoleums that Picasso had made for the bullfight posters. bulls of Vallauris and had them dedicated (“FOR My Friend Busquets of yours Picasso / on 3-7-60”, reads one from 1958). He also acquired different drawings such as those entitled Picador or Arcadia.
