Pablo Picasso has come home to Málaga. Half a century after the universal  artist wanted to take his work to his home town, his dream has come true.
Christine and Bernard Ruiz Picasso, the artist’s daughter-in-law and grandson, have been the ‘architects’ of this new museum, opened on October 27, providing 204 pieces from their own collection.

The Museum
The building was designed by architects Richard Gluckman, Isabel Cámara and Rafael Martín Delgado and cost the government in Andalucía 66 million euros.
It houses pieces that take you right through Picasso’s development as an artist, from his blue period up to his very last works, painted when the artist was over 90 years old, along with a collection of his sculpture and ceramics, including pieces never shown before.
The permanent collection is arranged around 12 different rooms, with four other rooms for temporary exhibitions.
The main attraction of the first temporary exhibition, El Picasso de los Picasso, is the extensive collection of oils on loan from other museums and pieces belonging to family members including Picasso’s daughter Maya and his grandchildren Paloma and Claude.
The official opening of the museum by the King and Queen of Spain coincided with the 30th anniversary of this universal Spanish painter’s death. Even today it is impossible to talk about art without mentioning Picasso.
With this in mind we have produced this special report dedicated to the Andalucian painter, with the collaboration of:
Paola Dominguín, Lucía Bosé’s daughter and the artist’s goddaughter, who has chosen two of her favourite Picassos (El pintor y la modelo, 1963).
Cayetana de Alba, who is photographed for the first time with her only Picasso (Composición cubista, 1920), which hangs in a private room in the Liria Palace in Madrid.
Carmen Thyssen, vice-president of the Thyssen Foundation photographed with Los segadores (1907), one of the centrepieces of her multi-million dollar private collection.
Pilar del Castillo, Spain’s culture minister, who has chosen one of the artist’s sculptures, Cabeza de mujer (1909).
Gabriel Alberca, artist and Picasso’s friend and disciple, based in Málaga, with his choice Retrato de Góngora (1947) from the Pablo Ruiz Picasso Foundation (Málaga).
Juan Manuel Bonet, director of the Reina Sofía Museum, who poses with the famous and historic Guernica (1937).

Paola Dominguín
Daughter of Luis Miguel Dominguín and Lucía Bosé, Paola has a godfather with a difference - Pablo Ruiz Picasso.
Former model and actress, Paola Dominguín still has the elegance that made her queen of the Spanish catwalk.
She remembers very little about her godfather, and only really has the family photos to go by, in which Picasso is just another face.
“I remember that when I was little I used to say: ‘You don’t know how to paint’. Of course, as a young child I could really identify with the painter but at the same time the greatness of his work went over my head”.
Picasso’s goddaughter has a vivid memory of how her godfather looked at you: “Big black eyes that his daughter Paloma has as well. My mother always described them as ‘penetrating’ and I can understand why because it was a look that went right through you.”
The Dominguín-Bosé family always had a special relationship with Picasso. “My father was a bullfighter and Picasso was fascinated by his profession and by that aspect of Spanish culture. He loved my mother dearly. My sister Lucía lived for a year with his family in Cannes. She was at boarding school but she always spent the weekends at his house,” says Paola.
The painter’s goddaughter remembers in particular two occasions that she spent with Picasso, even though she was very young at the time: “In Mougins, where he lived, there was a pond full of red fish. He let me get in, and I waded in wearing just my panties, a blonde little thing, and tried to catch the fish. I never caught any, but I apparently looked so happy...
“And this is the other time I remember as if it was yesterday: we once stayed overnight in his castle in Vauvenargues. We three children ended up sleeping in the same bed because we were afraid, there were so many noises. Imagine, it was a massive house, completely dark, and the floorboards creaked. I remember that night because it was so scary”.
The ex-model explains how there was always a photo that really captured the artist as he was, displayed in pride of place in her childhood home. “In the photo he has white hair and he’s     wearing shorts and he had his huge Afghan hound by his side. He looked so dignified.” She also confesses to being especially fond of two photos in particular, one of herself in the pond in Mougins and another of the whole family with the painter, all wearing masks.

Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, Duchess of Alba
The fact that the idea to open up certain parts of the Liria Palace to the public came from the duchess herself is evidence of her sincere desire to promote culture, and painting in particular.
Cayetana set up the Casa de Alba Foundation with that very aim, to promote art in Spain.
The duchess wanted to pose for the first time ever with one of her most loved paintings, a 1920 Picasso entitled Composición Cubista, which hangs in one of the private rooms in the Liria Palace, alongside other works by Dalí, Renoir and other masters.
The painting has been in the family for 25 years and the duchess admits that the Picasso period it belongs to is one of her favourites.
Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart believes that the inventor of cubism is ‘one of the greatest painters ever’, and she considers his work ‘a genuine wonder’.
She herself, or rather her image, could have become part of contemporary art history if she had accepted Picasso’s offer to paint her portrait.  But she declined.

Carmen Thyssen
Pablo Picasso was one of the contemporary artists who Carmen Cervera, Baroness Thyssen, always wanted to have in her private collection, which now numbers more than 600 works and is on loan to Spain, free of charge, for 11 years.
The baroness, now considered Europe’s most prominent art collector, has added a Picasso to her collection of great artistic works, Los segadores (oil on canvas, 1907, 65 x 81.5 cm), pictured with her here.
In her choice, Carmen consulted with Tomás Llorens, the Thyssen Bornemisza Museum’s curator and director, a trusted adviser ever since the museum was opened.
“Picasso is the ideal, the painter who moved to Paris around 1905 (not long before he painted Los segadores), where he abandons content to focus more on form”, said Lorens.
Los segadores is one of Carmen Cervera’s favourite paintings – she wanted to be photographed with it for this homage to Picasso – and it will be one of the works in the collection to be housed in the new rooms of the Thyssen Museum.
This is one of the ten most visited museums in Europe, which also exhibits other great works by the Málaga artist, including Hombre con clarinete (1911-12), Cabeza de hombre (1913-14), Arlequín con espejo (1923) and Corrida de toros (1934).
“My greatest wish has been to expand the museum, and it will house my private collection from February 2004 onwards,” says Baron Von Thyssen’s widow. It was her husband, a collector himself, who infused her with a love of art.

Pilar del Castillo
The culture minister in José María Aznar’s cabinet is another great admirer of Picasso’s work. In her opinion, the Málaga painter is the greatest artist of the 20th century because he fuses modernism with tradition in painting.
She chose to pose for this report with one of his sculptures, Cabeza de mujer (Fernande), a bronze from 1909 which is in the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid.
The sculpture was inspired by the artist’s model Fernande Oliver, of whom Picasso also produced several sketches and paintings. “In this sculpture,” says the Minister, “you can clearly see the fusion of the classic and the modern: the wisdom and the weight of tradition and the newness and the power of the vanguard.”

Juan Manuel Bonet
Art has always been a part of Juan Manuel Bonet’s life. He was one time director of the Valencian Institute of Modern Art and is now director of the Reina Sofía National Art Museum.
Like all modern art lovers, he cannot hide his admiration for Picasso: “For me, Picasso is the artist who opened the 20th century. The expression ‘the century of Picasso’ is very apt. Other important 20th century names are Matisse, Mondrian, Kandinsky and Miró.”
In Juan Manuel Bonet’s opinion, the painter’s best piece is Las señoritas de Aviñón but he has chosen to pose alongside Guernica because of the dramatic circumstances – the Spanish civil war – during which it was painted and because it is the 20th century’s most important historical work.
Bonet also believes that the painting is the jewel in the crown, the piece the rest of our collection revolves around.
The director of the Reina Sofía describes Picasso as: “A man who had an omnivorous curiosity, but who was, deep down, really quite secretive.”
For Bonet his most important contribution to art was the invention of cubism. “But his creative ability was practically relentless. The final phase of his work was not held in high esteem at the time, but it is now considered to be full of new discoveries, of genius.”

Gabriel Alberca
Gabriel Alberca was born in Algeria but has lived most of his life in Málaga.
He is a member of the San Telmo Royal Academy of Fine Arts and he describes himself as a representational artist. He was one of the group of Málaga painters who stayed with Picasso in Cannes in 1957.
Alberca remembers Picasso’s love of life: “He lived life to the full in every way and that’s why he was, to a certain extent, destructive, not only in his art in which he destroyed and recreated everything, but also in his personal life. His life was very complex.”
For Alberca, Pablo Ruiz Picasso is the symbol of the 20th century. His favourite periods are the cubism and the whole of his early work, the blue and pink periods. “He made it very difficult for us all to go on painting. After Picasso, we had to start again from scratch.”