Picasso’s visits to Malaga

1895

In 1891, Picasso’s father, José Ruiz Blasco, took up the post of professor of Drawing in La Corunna. The family lived in that city until 1895 in an atmosphere of sadness prompted by being far from their native land and accentuated by the tragic death of Conchita, the couple’s youngest daughter. José Ruiz managed to get a new posting to Barcelona and in the summer of 1895, before travelling there, the family paid a visit to Malaga. They stayed in the house of Picasso’s uncle, doctor Salvador Ruiz Blasco, and during that time frequented the oil press-country estate at Lanes, a place where all the members of the family gathered.

1896

The Ruiz Picasso family, now settled in Barcelona, spent the next two summers in Malaga. Their stay in 1896 was particular fruitful: Picasso was to paint a lot of landscapes taken from the surroundings of the oil press-estate at Llanes (these paintings show an attempt to oppose academic precepts), and he also produced the portrait of his aunt, Josefa Ruiz.

1897

In the summer of 1897, the family stayed in the house of Picasso’s maternal grandmother. It is said that in the Malaga Lyceum, the famous artist Martinez de la Vega “ christened” Picasso as a painter with a few drops of champagne, in celebration of the 34th Honourable Mention obtained in the General Exhibition of Fine Arts in Madrid for his work “Science and Charity”. This canvas, in which he portrays his father as a doctor, was given to his uncle Salvador as a present, remaining in his house until 1918 (the year in which it was sent to Barcelona). That summer, Picasso courted his cousin Carmen Blasco, but this relation was soon forgotten; the following course, the young artist entered the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid, thanks to the financial support provided by his family in Malaga..

1900-1901

The last visit Picasso made to Malaga was on New Year’s Eve 1900 and the first days of 1901. He was accompanied only by a friend, the painter Carles Casagemas, with whom he had just returned from his first stay in Paris. Picasso’s aim was to help him get over an unhappy love affair, but he also wanted to settle the matter of his national service, persuading his uncle Salvador to pay the money required to free him from this obligation. However, his relations with the family were not good: staying on this occasion in a hostel, the two young men defiantly posed as Bohemians, in total opposition to the conservative mentality of the family.

Picasso’s drawings reflect the atmosphere of the brothels and the cafés with live musicians that they frequented, although we also find portraits of artists, a sketch of the German frigate, Gneisenau, which had sunk just outside the port.

Finally, on the 28th January 1901 Picasso and Casagemas separated, the former heading off to Madrid, leaving behind him days of bitterness and disillusionment spent in Malaga, his birthplace, to which he would never return.

• legality
• accesibility
• site map

• spanish
• english