On September 20, the French Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot and Minister of the Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire announced that Pablo Picasso's daughter Maya Ruiz-Picasso would hand over nine works from her father's collection to the French state.
In 1968, the then French Minister of Culture, André Malraux, initiated a law under which artists and their heirs can pay taxes in the form of works of art that are classified as national property. Ruiz-Picasso, the daughter of Picasso and Marie-Thérèse Walter, is donating the nine works to settle a tax bill, as well as to enrich the collection of the Musée Picasso.
The nine works of art include six paintings, a sculpture and a sketchbook by Picasso, as well as a Polynesian Tiki sculpture from his personal collection. The paintings come from varied phases of the artist's life and include a portrait of his father Don José Ruiz, which was created in Spain in 1895; a portrait of the mother of his partner Marie-Thérèse Walter (1939); Enfant à la sucette assis sous une chaise (1938) depicting Maya Ruiz-Picasso; and Étude pour une joueuse de mandoline (1932), El bobo (1959) and Tête d'homme (1971.) The sculpture La Vénus du gaz dates from 1945 and the sketchbook from 1962.
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The donated works will be handed over to the Musée Picasso in Paris, and will be featured in an exhibition in spring 2022.
The Musée Picasso inside the Hôtel Salé opened in 1985. It not only includes numerous works by Pablo Picasso, but also those from his personal collection of artists such as Georges Braque, Joan Miró, Amedeo Modigliani and Paul Cézanne. The interior design of the Hôtel Salé was redesigned by Diego Giacometti.
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Maya Ruiz-Picasso's donation is not the first of its kind to benefit the Musée Picasso. The first works of art added to the collection come from an extensive donation made in 1979, six years after the artist's death. Another followed in 1990 with pieces from the legacy of Picasso's second wife, Jacqueline Roque.
