Visitors to Barcelona can certainly enjoy all kinds of artistry, from the brilliance of Gaudi to the rather different kind of skill performed on a football pitch by Lionel Messi. However, if ever there was a man who pushed the boundaries of what we consider to be art, it is Pablo Picasso. And the Picasso Museum in Barcelona is a great place to find out all about the man and his art. The founder of the cubist movement in sculpture, Picasso was born in Malaga and lived in Barcelona as a teenager, but spent the bulk of his life in France. Nonetheless, in Spain as well as many other place around the world there is still a great desire to see his works and ponder on the mind and the skills that brought his concepts and ideas to life. Indeed, the museum in Barcelona focuses on the formative period of his career in Catalonia.
Opened in 1963, ten years before he died, the museum houses no less than 4,251 works in its permanent collection. It not only focuses on his early cubist and surrealist works, but also highlights the deep relationship Picasso had with Barcelona, even when he had long since made Paris his home. As well as his works from the ‘Blue period’ in his early life, many of the artist’s works from 1917 are on display, as is the 1957 series Las Meninas and a wide collection of prints. There is also information about the places where Picasso lived and studied in Barcelona through the 1890s, as well as the last studio he had in the city, which he used until making his switch to Parisian living permanent in 1904.
Guests staying in luxury hotels in central Barcelona can find the museum easily, as it is located on Carrer de Montcada in the city centre, close to several other important museums. These include the museum of world cultures, the mammoth museum and the Museum of Modern European Art.
