BARCELONA.- Bernardo Laniado-Romero became director of the Museu Picasso de Barcelona in March after being appointed by a committee. A seven-person commission of artistic experts, having examined and evaluated the 15 applications to head the Museu Picasso de Barcelona, proposed the appointment of Bernardo Laniado-Romero (Guayaquil, Ecuador, 1964). Laniado-Romero, who was director of the Museo Picasso Málaga from 2004 until 2009, did his graduate studies at the Institute of Fine Arts in New. For Jaume Ciurana, Barcelona’s Deputy Mayor for Culture, Knowledge, Creativity and Innovation, ‘the Museu Picasso is embarking an exciting new stage with Laniado-Romero at the helm. I am sure that the new director will connect Pablo Picasso and his work even more closely to Barcelona and Catalonia. He will have the full support of Barcelona’s City Council to carry out his cultural project at the highest level possible.’

The committee of experts was composed of the director of the Fundació Joan Miró, Rosa Maria Malet; the critic and art historian and member of the Council of Culture of Barcelona, Daniel Giralt-Miracle; the curator and former director of Tate Modern in London, Vicent Todolí; the art historian Marilyn McCully; the deputy director of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Brigitte Léal; the director of Heritage, Museums and Archives of the Institute of Culture of Barcelona (ICUB), Josep Lluís Alay; and the ICUB’s Promotion of Cultural Sectors director, Llucià Homs, as delegate of the manager of the ICUB, Marta Clari.

The Picasso Museum in Barcelona is a key reference for understanding the formative years of Pablo Ruiz Picasso. The genius of the young artist is revealed through the more than 3,800 works that make up the permanent collection. Furthermore, the Museu Picasso, opened in 1963, also reveals his deep relationship with Barcelona: an intimate, solid relationship that was shaped in his adolescence and youth, and continued until his death.

The history of the Picasso Museum in Barcelona is the chronicle of the artist’s firm wish to leave the imprint of his art in our city. Thanks to the wishes of Picasso and his friend and personal secretary, Jaume Sabartés, Barcelona now has the youthful work of one of the twentieth century’s most significant artists.

The Museum is very rich in regard to work from the training periods in the life of the artist; we could say that it is practically exhaustive up to the Blue Period, of which the Museum has a priceless group of works. Furthermore, the Museum houses an important representation of works from 1917, and the series, Las Meninas (1957) and a very large Picasso’s prints collection, now displayed in the rooms opened in the beginning of 2008.

The Museum has undergone successive renovations and expansions, and it’s currently starting to develop new programmes, activities and services to become a reference place, envisaged to spreading knowledge and to fostering the visitor’s participation and critical views. The Museum wishes to be a dialogue space, exploring new approaches to Picasso’s work and influence and offering new perspectives on the Museum Collection.