Exhibitions to commemorate Picasso Year in Madrid

April 8 of this year will mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Pablo Picasso, undoubtedly the most famous painter of the 20th century. To commemorate this anniversary Madrid will be filled with exhibitions and events, supported by renowned cultural institutions and the governments of Spain and France, offering a comprehensive analysis of Picasso’s work.

Born in Malaga on October 25, 1881, and died in the French town of Mougins on April 8, 1973, Pablo Picasso projected internationally such universal symbols as Guernica, today a collective emblem in the defense of human rights.

Here are the major exhibitions planned this year to discover this universal genius.

Imagine Picasso Exhibition

IFEMA’s Espacio 5.1 hosts the first immersive exhibition of the Malaga-born artist. The exhibition includes more than 200 works, many of them from private collections and from the most important museums in the world.

The works are freed from their frames to occupy the space, displayed in complete darkness except for the light emanating from the works themselves. The viewer’s freedom to choose his or her path makes him or her an observer who can take the time to look in any direction and immerse him or herself in Picasso’s work.

Until April 10 at IFEMA.

Subway: Feria de Madrid.

Lucien Clergue

The Fernán Gómez Centro Cultural de la Villa joins the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Picasso’s death with an exhibition dedicated to this painter with images by French photographer Lucien Clergue and Brigitte Baer’s personal archive.

The exhibition offers a journey through the work of the French photographer Lucien Clergue, with whom the painter Pablo Picasso maintained a great friendship that Clergue reflected in his book Picasso mon ami. A book containing a series of 38 unpublished black and white and color photographs taken of the renowned artist.

This exhibition will focus on the most intimate and everyday aspects of the painter’s life and will be completed with the personal archive of Brigitte Baer, the great researcher of Picasso’s graphic work.

From April to June at the Fernán Gómez Centro Cultural de la Villa.

Subway: Colón.

Picasso and El Greco

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the death of Pablo Picasso, the Prado Museum is organizing an exhibition in which works by the Andalusian artist are interspersed with paintings by El Greco, one of the artists who most influenced him.

The exhibition provides a glimpse of the references that Picasso obtained from the work of the Greek creator in order to better understand the first part of his career, between the Blue Period and Cubism.

From June 13 to September 17 at the Museo del Prado.

Subway: Art Station.

Picasso vs. Velazquez

Casa de Velázquez also joins this event with an exhibition curated by Emmanuel Guigon, director of the Picasso Museum in Barcelona. His inspiration comes from the summer of 1957, when Picasso secludes himself for four months and makes a set of 58 paintings directly inspired by Velázquez’s Meninas. and provoked by the discovery of a photograph of the painter’s work that reconnects him with the first sensations of his visit to the Prado Museum, when he was a teenager.

From September to November at Casa Velázquez.

Subway: Moncloa.

Picasso. The sacred and the profane

The Thyssen Museum does not want to miss the occasion either, and has organized an exhibition that mixes works by the artist with a selection of works by old masters from the museum’s collection.

The eight works by Picasso belonging to the museum, and several loans from the Musee national Picasso-Paris and other institutions and collectors, are exhibited alongside a selection of Old Master paintings to show how the artist approached the main themes and genres of traditional European art: history, religion, myths, portraiture and still life, organized into three sections: the sacred and the profane, identities and the visual and tangible.

From October 4 to January 14, 2024 at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Subway: Paseo del Arte.

Rethinking Guernica

The website Rethinking Guernica, developed by the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, will allow you to learn all the details of one of the most famous paintings in the world.

Picasso 1906: The great transformation

How did Picasso influence the birth of modern art? This question will be answered by the exhibition to be hosted by the Reina Sofia Museum at the end of 2023. An exhibition that, on the half-centenary of the artist’s death, investigates the influence of his legacy from today’s perspective. It will be the museum’s most important exhibition this year and will focus on the analysis of the year 1906, a fundamental year in the painter’s production and life.

From November 14, 2023 to March 4, 2024 at the Museo Reina Sofía.

Subway: Art Station.