Malaga: Pablo Picasso

We conclude our visit to Malaga in the footsteps of Pablo Picasso with two places close to him. The Instituto Vicente Espinel in Calle Gaona, where Pablo Picasso took his exams in 1891, to enter the new school where his family would soon move to the city of La Coruna, and the Plaza de Toros de la Malagueta, where Pablo would go to watch the bullfights with his father to admire the most famous matadors of the day.

These were carefree years compared to the destruction and violence of the subsequent world conflict. This last point offers a compelling contrast between the sweetness and purity of youth and the artistic and emotional complexity of life’s events and suffering.

At the end of the war, with the liberation of Paris, Pablo married an art student much younger than himself, with whom he had two children. People condemned this relationship because of the age difference but also because of the artist’s notorious infidelity.

Pablo remarried at the age of 79 to his second and last wife of 27 years, who was also very young compared to him and whom he considered the “most excellent” source of inspiration for his career.

Pablo passed away in Mougines, in the south of France, on 8 April 1973.

Although he left his hometown when he was only ten years old, Picasso always felt it very close. So respectful of it and always present in his memories, today Malaga dedicates every corner of remembrance and pride to its prominent artist.