Skip to main content
SeeProvence

Picasso comes to Aix-en-Provence in 2021

One of the world's largest Picasso collections to be exhibited in Provence

featured in News & reviews Author System User, Chief Executive Bot Updated

The stepdaughter of the modern master is to set up a new museum in Aix-en Provence which will feature one of the largest Picasso collections in the world.

Catherine Hutin-Blay inherited the 2000+ piece collection from her mother, the second wife of the Spanish artist. The building chosen to house the impressive collection is an old convent dating back to the 13th century, the ‘Couvent de Precheurs’ in the centre of Aix-en-Provence. It was sold to Hutin-Blay’s company under market value but, as it is expected that the museum will attract 500,000 annual visitors when it opens in 2021, this was deemed the right project for the building.

The space will have 1000m2 of permanent exhibition space and a further 500m2 for temporary exhibitions. Additionally, the museum will house a Picasso research centre. The collection, which surpasses that of the Picasso Museum in Paris, contains over 1000 paintings and is completed by drawings, sculptures and ceramics. The works mostly date from the later period of Picasso’s life, from 1952 to 1973. A time of intense productivity and stylistic changes in his life.