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“If Picasso were alive today,” Marc Blondeau, a well-known art dealer and former head of Sotheby’s France, told Vanity Fair in 2016, “he would be one of the ten wealthiest men in the world.” No other artist in the world has the type of cache and head-turning energy as Pablo Picasso. Which is why when news broke that a new museum will house the world's largest Picasso collection, people immediately took notice. It was recently reported in The Art Newspaper that Picasso’s stepdaughter, Catherine Hutin-Blay, is planning to open a museum dedicated to Picasso and his second (and final) wife, Jacqueline Roque. Aptly named Musée Jacqueline et Pablo Picasso, the venue will house over 1,000 paintings (in addition to drawings, sculptures, ceramics, painted plates, and photographs) that are dated between 1952 and 1973—the years the couple were together, until Picasso's death in April 1973.
Hutin-Blay, who was the only child the couple had, inherited over 2,000 works by the titan of 20th-century art, after her mother's death in 1986. For years, Picasso's stepdaughter had intentions to build a museum to house the great artist's work. Yet, much like the tumultuous life Picasso led, the deed to his art and legal battles that ensued after his death have caused serious issues and schisms within the family (Picasso left no will). Finally, however, it appears Hutin-Blay will follow through on her dreams of exhibiting the work Picasso made while living and married to her mother. The location of the museum will be in an old château in Aix-en-Provence, not far from where her parents are buried.
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It's not merely that this will be the largest Picasso collection in the world that makes this news so exciting, but that many of the works have never been on public display before. Not only was Picasso a well-documented hoarder, but he despised departing with his paintings, as he felt a work of art was never complete. At the turn of the century, when Picasso was a rising star in the Parisian avant-garde scene but struggling to make ends meet, he would often be forced to sell his work for several hundred francs, pennies to the value they eventually amassed. Selling his work, during any time of his career, was by far his least favorite aspect of art. The art critic Miles J. Unger explained this in his forthcoming book, Picasso and the Painting That Shocked the World (Simon & Schuster, March 2018), through the experience of Fernande Olivier, Picasso's girlfriend from 1905 through 1912. "'Pablo can't bear to sell works he considers unfinished,' Fernande noted, going on to reveal that, according to him, 'a painting is never finished, something could always be added. He resigns himself to parting with his pictures because he's forced to, as he wouldn't have the materials to work with, but he always complains about it and feels resentful for days afterwards.'" As a result, when the artist gained fame and wealth, and money no longer became a concern, he simply would not relinquish some of his work. It is because of this fact that many of the pieces set to be displayed have never been viewed by the public. As Janie Cohen, a Picasso expert and director of the Fleming Museum of Art at the University of Vermont, explained to The Art Newspaper, "Most of the works have been neither previously exhibited nor published. These are works that remained with the artist throughout his life."
The museum, which is due to open by 2021, will have over 16,000 square feet of exhibition space. Nearly 11,000 square feet will be dedicated to permanent displays, while over 5,000 square feet will be reserved for temporary shows. Which is all to say that soon, we will know if any dimensions will be able to contain the sheer brilliance of Pablo Picasso’s oeuvre.
