Head of Musketeer (Mougins, 1968) is an oil on plywood from Picasso’s last period. Its ancestry can be traced to the review of Spanish baroque painting that the artist undertook in the nineteen sixties. Likewise, the literature of the Spanish Golden Age was a source of inspiration for the painter";" it is known that the painter was the owner of seventeenth and eighteenth century editions of writings by Góngora, the Quixote, and a 1601 copy of La Celestina.

Also known as the Bust of a Spanish Gentleman, the guest work forms part of Picasso&rsquo";"s reinterpretations of the baroque, along the same lines as his famous series of the Meninas. The singularity of its trapezoidal shape could point to the fact that, as on other occasions, Picasso was reusing material that he had to hand, in this case a piece of plywood, as an element of artistic creation.

Onto this base the artist applied loose, agile and lively brushwork, as is so often the case during this last stage of his artistic career. He used this broad and extensive line to mark the most characteristic features of the gentleman, and the final enlivening touch is the red flash of his lips and the suggestion of a roguish drunkenness which is given away by the fleshy redness of his nose. Alongside the perfect dating of the work to September 15th, Picasso adds the number I as the start of the series which he is going to work on.

Guest Museum is the Museo Picasso Málaga’s new project for collaboration. Thanks to the generosity of the Museo de Málaga, Head of Musketeer, painted by Pablo Picasso in 1968, will be shown again in the Palacio de Buenavista, where it was originally exhibited, when the palace housed the Museo de Málaga. This is the first institution to join in on this initiative. This oil painting thus temporarily joins the permanent Collection’s exhibitory story, and brings a new and valuable exhibit to the work on display.

Head of Musketeer can be seen in Gallery 10 of the Palacio de Buenavista from 27th April until next October, very close to another Picasso musketeer, the oil painting called Musketeer with sword (1972), which is part of the MPM Collection. After being shown here, it will in fact stay a few more months in the MPM, since it will then move to form part of the exhibition The Grotesque Factor, which will be inaugurated at the MPM on October 22nd.

The Museo de Málaga Picasso collection This work came into the Museo de Málaga collection in 1993 from Spanish ministry storage, having been part of the collection of Agustín Rodríguez Sahagún, who was a minister during the government of the UCD. This institution owns a small but heterogeneous collection of works by Pablo Picasso. Amongst these, of particular note are the water colour called El viejo de la manta (The Old Man with the Blanket), a portrait of his father sent to his teacher Antonio Muñoz Degrain from La Coruña and donated by the Valencian painter in 1916, and Pareja de ancianos (Old Couple) (La Coruña, 1895), a picture given as a gift to his cousin Concha and donated by her father to the Museum in 1923.

In the nineteen fifties and sixties, as a result of activity to this end by Juan Temboury, Jaume Sabartés, Picasso&rsquo";“s secretary, bequeathed his Picasso library to the Museum, which included four complete files of graphic work by the artist. The Picasso collection at the Museo de Málaga was rounded off with the charcoal on paper portraits of the painter Francisco Bohigas and the sculptor from Antequera, Francisco Palma García, both of which are early work from his years of training around the Madrid Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (Royal San Fernando Academy of Fine Art), along with a piece of ceramics. Thus, since the nineteen eighties, the Museo de Málaga has been able to offer a Picasso Room at its premises in the Palacio de Buenavista, with clear emphasis on the artist&rsquo”;"s work on paper.

The Museo de Málaga is the fruit of the administrative union of the old Málaga provincial museums of Archaeology and of Fine Art, in 1972. Currently it is being completely reorganised for its upcoming inauguration in the nearby Palacio de la Aduana, the Customs Palace.

More info and images: comunicacion@mpicassom.org