Postcard from Bilbao, Spain: Picasso’s sculptures reflect women he loved

Above: Museum-goer interacting with Pablo Picasso’s “Head of a Woman” made from sheet metal

Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don’t start measuring her limbs.” 

Pablo Picasso

And Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) loved a number of women, many of whom served as temporary muses appearing in his work until his romantic attentions turned elsewhere.

He once famously said, “For me, there are two kinds of women: goddesses and doormats.” Some of his goddesses soon found themselves in the role of doormats.

Wait, my apologies. I didn’t mean to head off in that direction.

The year 2023 was the 50th anniversary of the death of the prolific Malaga-born artist, and Spain commemorated it with major exhibitions throughout the country. Picasso’s sculptural work was the focus of “Matter and Body” mounted in the spacious galleries of Guggenheim Bilbao.

Some of the loves of Picasso’s life might have felt like abused muses, but the body of work they inspired is remarkable. Even 50 years after his death.