In order to follow Picasso’s steps in Barcelona, we must begin in Carrer de la Plata where he had its first factory in 1896, with his friend and colleague Manuel Pallarès.
Afterwards he moved to another one in Carrer dels Escudellers Blancs in the heart of the gothic district. The old part of the city was a swarm of cultural life at that time, and Picasso submerged in it with all his energy. It’s been said that one of its streets: Avinyó, populated with women, was his inspiration for his first cubista work, Les Mademoiselles d'Avignon.
The centre of all that Bohemian life was, without doubts, Els Quatre Gats, a brewery inspired on a famous Parisian coffee. The social gatherings, exhibitions and concerts, had a young student called Picasso.
There they had news about the vanguard movements that caused rage in the French capital: the impressionism, the symbolism, the work of Toulouse-Lautrec. At the door of this establishment still today you can see the advertising poster that Pablo Picasso designed for Els Quatre Gats, that shows a great Eastern influence in its work (1898). In 1900, Picasso already makes in this bar his first independent exhibition, still somewhat with informal character.
The Parés gallery is the first one in which Picasso exposes seriously in 1901. The exhibition was not great successful due to the style of his work, too realistic for the taste of the cultural bourgeoisie of that moment. This first failure impels him to his great step: Paris, where he moved definitively in 1906 to never return to Barcelona.
Nevertheless, he fulfils an honour debt with the city that saw born his career as a painter, designing the Architect’s School frieze of Catalonia in Nova Square. In it’s inside, there’re another two murals dedicated to the city of Barcelona and to the Sardana. Following the tracks of Pablo in Barcelona, we’ll arrive to the Picasso’s Museum located in the Aguilar Palace, in Carrer Montcada, in the Borne district, which is a reference centre of the knowledge of the formation’s years of Pablo Picasso.
Through more than 3,600 works that conforms the permanent collection keeps awake the genius of the young artist. But the Picasso Museum is also the testimony of his bond with Barcelona.
Thanks to the will of Picasso and his friend Jaume Sabartés, Barcelona today has the youth work of one of the most significant artists of the artistic scene of the XX Century.
Return to the Port or Hotel.