Only one artist in 2023 can cause 50 of the world’s most influential museums to host simultaneous exhibitions to their life and work throughout the year. And that artist is Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso, better known simply as Picasso.
To mark the 50th anniversary of the Spanish master’s death, blue-chip curators around the world are joining forces for Picasso Celebration 1973-2023, a transcontinental Picasso party organized by the Spanish and French culture ministries alongside the painter’s grandson, Bernard Ruiz-Picasso. Tracing Picasso’s influence over the last two centuries, the comprehensive retrospective spans museums across Europe and the United States — from Brooklyn Museum to Guggenheim Bilbao, and dozens of points in between — before wrapping up in spring of 2024 with special exhibitions at the Museum Of Modern Art in New York and the Museo Picasso in Málaga, the artist’s birthplace in southern Spain.
So go ahead and bookend this year’s summer vacation in Europe with a Picasso pilgrimage through Madrid, Barcelona and Paris. For this week's Wire newsletter, PRIOR sketches out one way to tackle this once-in-a-century, art world celebration. Customize your own crawl with the design team at PRIOR by contacting membership@priorworld.com.
A Cubist Crawl Through Spain and France
We recommend kicking things off in Madrid, where the Guernica and over 100 other works by the artist are part of the permanent collections of Spain’s national gallery, Reina Sofía. The city is a focal point for this year’s commemoration, with six art spaces devoted to exhibitions, lectures and events related to the master artist’s output. June is an ideal time to go: The weather is warm and the art celebration will be in full swing, but without the hordes and heat found in July and August.
THE PICASSOS TO SEE
• Opening on June 13, a special exhibition at Madrid's Prado Museum pairs Picasso’s oeuvre with an artist who shaped the painter’s career between the Blue Period and Cubism: El Greco, the Greek painter and father of the Spanish Renaissance.
• La Casa Encendida is a sprawling multi-level cultural center situated on the outskirts of Lavapies, a neighborhood in the downtown Centro District. The Last Picasso 1963 - 1972, on view from May 19 to September 17, examines the last decade of the artist’s creative work “as a testament to future possibilities.”
• An assortment of masterpieces from the vaults of David Nahmad, an art dealer said to have the world’s largest private collection of Picasso paintings (many never seen by the public), will be shown at the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts, a palatial museum located in the heart of the city, through July 2.
WHERE TO STAY (AND STAY UP)
• Madrid is a “city where accommodations are destinations in themselves,” writes Enric Past, the former editor of the Spanish edition of Architectural Digest, in PRIOR’s roundup of the Spanish capital’s finest hotels. Check out Gran Hotel Inglés, Four Seasons Madrid, Barceló Torre de Madrid and the rest of the city's best stays here.
