On September 19, 1936, with the Civil War underway, Manuel Azaña, then President of the Government of the Republic, appointed Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) director of the Prado Museum.

It is the same year that he presents the 'Guernica' in the Spanish Pavilion of the International Exhibition in Paris.

He was in office, which he did not take over, until 1939. Picasso had not visited the museum for almost 20 years, but he had donated a sculpture,

The Offering Lady

, which is now on display at the Museo Reina Sofía.

The presence of Picasso in the Prado has been more or less constant in the last 40 years through temporary exhibitions. But it had never been part of the gallery's permanent collection, as was his wish. It is now, almost 50 years after his death, when one of his works will hang permanently (for five years) in the Prado rooms. It is the

Buste de Femme 43

. The Aramont Art Collection of the Arango Montull family has donated this piece through the American Friends of the Prado Museum. And with it, a

Portrait of Felipe III

, by Velázquez, becomes part of the museum's funds, where it has been in storage since 2016.

The Picasso painting will hang in the El Greco portrait room and it is the first time in the museum's history that a piece by the Malaga master has been displayed for so long. The agreed five-year period also allows that once that time is finished, the piece can remain permanently in the collection. The Prado collection houses works from Greco-Roman antiquity and closes with a symbolic date: 1881, the year of Picasso's birth. Everything that happens in artists born after that date is the territory of the Reina Sofía Museum.

The

relationship

of Picasso's work with the Prado has generated different tensions over the last three decades.

The loudest had one of its high points in 2012, when the former director of the Prado, Miguel Zugaza, assured that

Guernica

is a work linked to the art gallery and hinted that this is where it should be exhibited.

This theory, encouraged by the historian Francisco Calvo Serraller, now deceased, was invalidated in 2017, after some

friendly fire

crosses

between Zugaza and the current management of Reina Sofía.

The truth is that Picasso, now yes, will hang until 2026 on the walls of the Villanueva building.

The debate died down, but it was not extinguished.

Buste de Femme 43

is one more bend in the road.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Prado Museum

  • art

  • Pablo Picasso

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