The new Museo Picasso Málaga is an 8300-metre museum complex in the city’s historic centre at the foot of the famous alcazaba and next to the RomanTheatre and Renaissance cathedral. This area also contains the Plaza de la Merced, in one of whose buildings the painter was born, and the Iglesia de Santiago, where he was baptised. The square and church can round out an attractive Picasso route through the city.

The permanent collection of the Malaga painter’s work is kept in the  Palacio del Conde de Buenavista (Calle San Agustín, 8), which Picasso had already identified way back in 1953 as the perfect building for housing a museum in his home town. A fine example of Andalusian civil sixteenth-century architecture it blends Renaissance and Mudejar features.

The museum’s exhibits are culled from the donations of the artist’s heirs, making up a collection of 204 pieces, some never shown in public before, including oil paintings, sculptures, engravings, drawings and pottery. Also on display here are important vestiges of the Phoenician, Roman and Arab era unearthed during the palace fitting-out work.