Pablo Picasso Birthday Celebrated With Reopening of Musee Picasso Paris

The Musée Picasso Paris opens their doors today after five years of remodelling the 17th-century mansion in the Marais district. French president, François Hollande will cut the ribbon, opening a new era for the popular museum.

The museum has cost more than $60 million and the sacking of the institution’s president, Anne Baldassari, against the wishes of the Picasso estate. The French Minister of Culture and Communication, Aurélie Filippetti, and the President of the Musée Picasso Paris, Laurent Le Bon, announced that the museum’s remarkable collections, housed in the heart of Paris’ Marais district, will be open for the public to rediscover from today, the anniversary of the Master’s birth in 1881.

As a preview, the Hôtel Salé will be open free of charge for members of the public to come and admire one of the capital’s finest architectural monuments: “the grandest, most extraordinary, if not the most extravagant, of the grand Parisian houses of the 17thcentury” as art and architecture historian Bruno Foucart wrote in 1985.

Visitors will have the chance to discover the 17th century architecture restored by Stéphane Thouin, Chief Architect for Historic Monuments, and the contributions of Roland Simounet and architectural firm Bodin & Associés.
The exceptional opening weekend will feature an exhibition of documents casting light on the site’s history, its architecture and the museum itself.

The Musee Picasso houses thousands of works that were in the artist’s possession when he died in 1973, and were made over to the state by his family in lieu of taxes. Pablo Picasso’s grandson Olivier Picasso will be on-hand focussing in particular on his grandmother – Picasso’s lover and muse Marie-Therese Walter.

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