Prime Minister's Office of Spain

09/12/2022 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 09/13/2022 05:08

The President of the Government of Spain, together with Their Majesties the King and Queen of Spain, inaugurate 'Picasso Year', which commemorates the 50th anniversary of the[...]

The President of the Government of Spain, together with Their Majesties the King and Queen of Spain, inaugurate 'Picasso Year', which commemorates the 50th anniversary of the death of the Spanish artist

President's News - 2022.9.12

Pedro Sánchez stressed that, with this initiative and in collaboration with the French Government and Picasso's family, the Government of Spain wants to turn this commemoration "into an event of global significance".

Reina Sofía Museum, Madrid

The President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, has spoken at the opening ceremony of the activities to commemorate 'Picasso Year', presided over by Their Majesties the King and Queen of Spain, which was held at the Reina Sofía Museum. This is an initiative with which the Government of Spain - in collaboration with the French Government and Picasso's family - wants to turn the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Spanish artist's death "into an event of global significance", said the head of the Executive.

Sánchez stated that the 1973-2023 Picasso celebration revolves around 50 exhibitions and events that, as a whole, will provide a complete historiographical analysis of the artist's oeuvre, who has been "the Spanish artist with the greatest transcendence and universal projection of the entire 20th century". "A quintessentially European artist. A man who, from a profound knowledge of the heritage and principles of tradition and an understanding of classicism as an ethical value, transgressed and transferred a vision of that whole universe, in a unique way, to his work", he pointed out.

The head of the Executive referred to Guernica, Picasso's masterpiece, as "a work that transcends time; symbolising the defence of Human Rights". "It is a political picture that sheds as much truth on our past as a photograph of that horror, but also appeals to the wars of the present" - as President Zelenskyy recalled a few months ago in his address from Ukraine to the Lower House of Parliament. "That is their greatness," he remarked.

The event was attended by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares; the Minister for the Presidency, Parliamentary Relations and Democratic Memory, Félix Bolaños, and the Minister for Culture and Sport, Miquel Iceta. The French Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak, and Pablo Picasso's grandson, Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, who is President of the Executive Council of the Picasso Museum in Malaga, also took part.

Pool Moncloa / Fernando Calvo

Non official translation