Displaying items by tag: picasso museum

Just a year after its grand reopening, the Musée Picasso in Paris is reinventing itself yet again. The museum is opening a new presentation of the world’s richest Picasso collection to mark its 30th anniversary. The rehang is part of a campaign by the museum’s president, Laurent Le Bon, to re-energise staff and repair the institution’s reputation after a highly contested renovation that closed the site for five years.

Paris’ Picasso Museum will reopen on Saturday, October 25, following a turbulent renovation and expansion. The institution closed in 2009 for what was expected to be a two-year refurbishment, but once underway, the scope of the project expanded. Five years later and $27 million over budget, the renovation is finally complete.

The Picasso Museum, which is housed in a 17th-century Baroque mansion in Paris’ historic Marais quarter, first opened to the public in 1985. The majority of its collection, which features around 5,000 paintings, drawings, sculptures, ceramics, photographs, and documents, was left to the French state by the Picasso family after the artist’s death in 1973.

Life with Picasso was never easy, it seems, and neither was the €52 million renovation of Paris's Picasso Museum. After five years of delays and difficulties, culminating in a public quarrel and the firing of its president in May, the museum's reopening is finally set for the artist's birthday, Oct. 25. The public will get a preview of the new interiors, before the artworks are installed, on Sept 20-21. The renovation has doubled the public space, modernized outdated facilities and added a new entrance, a multimedia auditorium and a Cubist garden with geometric topiary trees.

The museum's 17th-century hôtel particulier was built in 1659 by Pierre Aubert, a financier and adviser to Louis XIV. He was also the salt tax collector, and his extravagant mansion was quickly nicknamed Hôtel Salé (salty). The majestic staircase, based on a plan by Michelangelo, is the centerpiece, with delicate ironwork banisters and a sumptuous array of sculpted garlands, cherubs and divinities.

The problematic Musée Picasso in Paris, which has been going through political upheaval has received some good news. Pablo Picasso’s eldest daughter, Maya Widmaier-Picasso, has donated two works by her father to the institution. Last June, Anne Baldassari, president since 2005 was fired, replaced by Centre Pompidou-Metz director Laurent Le Bon. This has created a split in the Picasso family. The changes have occured because of the delayed five-year renovation project, which has caused a massive spending deficit.

A 1908 drawing of a woman’s face in the Cubist style, containing a portrait of the poet Guillaume Apollinaire on the reverse of the page has been gifted by the artist's daughter.

The reopening of Paris's Picasso museum after an extensive five-year renovation has been pushed back by a month to October 25, France's Culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti said Monday.

The museum, which houses one of the world's most extensive collections of the Spanish master's work, had initially closed for a two-year renovation and its reopening has been deferred several times.

Filippetti said the delay was to ensure "good security conditions" to display the works. The reopening will coincide with the 133rd anniversary of Picasso's birth.

The director of the Pompidou-Metz Laurent Le Bon has been appointed president of the Musée Picasso in Paris, which is due to reopen at the end of September after a five-year refurbishment. Le Bon succeeds to Anne Baldassari, who was dismissed last month due to her much-criticized management style.

The French journalist Anne Sinclair has resigned from the board of trustees at Paris’s Musée Picasso, after less than a month in the post.

Sinclair, the granddaughter of the late French dealer Paul Rosenberg who represented Picasso, joined the board of the beleaguered museum on 28 April. But she stepped down in mid-May after Anne Baldassari, the museum’s former director, was dismissed by Aurélie Filippetti, the French minister of culture.

Picasso Museum chair Anne Baldassari has been removed from her post by Culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti in response to complaints about the poor condition of the facility, which is slated to reopen in September, the French Culture Ministry said Tuesday.

Filippetti had asked the Inspector General's Office for Cultural Affairs, or ICAG, to prepare a report on the museum, which has been plagued by delays in its remodeling and complaints from the Picasso heirs that France does not value the painter.

Paris’s Picasso museum, which houses one of the world’s most extensive collections of the Spanish painter’s work, is set to reopen its doors in September after being closed for five years for renovation, the culture ministry announced Sunday.

The popular museum was originally to be closed for a two-year renovation and the delay has caused controversy, with the painter's son Claude Picasso on Friday accusing the French government of indifference and saying he was "scandalised and very worried" about the future of the museum.

The Musée Picasso in Paris has postponed its reopening after announcing in February that it would open to the public in June. The museum has been closed for nearly five years for a renovation and expansion. Since the museum is under the stewardship of the French government, the Culture Ministry is responsible for determining an official reopening date.

The Musée Picasso, which holds one of the most comprehensive collections of Pablo Picasso’s work, initially closed for a two-year refurbishment, but once underway, the scope of the project expanded. Except for a few minor technical details, the renovation, which cost around $71 million, is complete.

Prior to the renovation, the Musée Picasso could only display a fraction of its 5,000 paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, and documents. The project nearly doubled the institution’s exhibition space, allowing the museum to display more of its illustrious collection. The museum will also be able to accommodate more guests than ever before and annual admission figures are expected to rise from 450,000 to 850,000.

The museum, which is located in a 17th-century Baroque mansion in Paris’ historic Marais quarter, first opened to the public in 1985. Most of its collection was left to the French state upon Picasso’s death in 1973. A number of works were also donated by the artist’s family, including his widow Jacqueline.

The Musée Picasso plans to reopen to the public by the end of the year.