Christine Ruiz-Picasso, a driving force behind Museo Picasso Málaga, dies at 97
Christine Ruiz-Picasso, who helped turn Pablo Picasso’s long-imagined museum in Málaga into a reality, died on April 6 at her home in Provence, France. She was 97.
Born Christine Pauplin in France in 1928, she became part of Picasso’s family through her marriage to Paul Ruiz-Picasso in 1962. The couple had one child, Bernard, in 1959. After her husband’s death in 1975, Ruiz-Picasso emerged as one of the artist’s most committed advocates, working to preserve and extend his legacy with unusual persistence.
Her most consequential contribution was to the museum in Málaga, the Andalusian city where Picasso was born in 1881. Picasso had first raised the idea of a museum there in 1953, but the project stalled for decades. Ruiz-Picasso revived it in the 1990s, after helping organize two Picasso exhibitions at the Episcopal Palace of Málaga in 1992 and 1994.
By 1996, she had moved the plan toward formalization. The following year, she and Bernard donated 223 works by Picasso to the foundation created to oversee the museum, while the Andalusian government purchased the Buenavista Palace as the future site. Museo Picasso Málaga opened in 2003, 50 years after Picasso first envisioned it, with King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofía presiding over the inauguration.
Ruiz-Picasso was named honorary president of the institution and received the Grand Cross of Alfonso X the Wise and the title Hija Predilecta de Andalucía that same year. In a statement, the museum described her as an essential figure in its creation and a tireless advocate for Picasso’s artistic legacy.
The museum has since mounted more than 80 exhibitions and welcomed more than 10 million visitors. To mark its 20th anniversary, it renamed its auditorium in her honor — a fitting gesture for a woman whose determination helped transform a family memory into a major public institution.
