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 other work is a sketchbook of 38 pencil drawings, all of them nude studies, dating from April 1960. The sketchbook drawings have never been seen in public before.
The Musée Picasso Paris’s collection is one of the world’s greatest archives. It already includes some 5,000 works by Picasso, including 300 paintings and 300 sculptures. When it reopens this autumn, the museum will have more than doubled its exhibition space, to about 41,000 square feet.