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Pablo Picasso's home town of Malaga in southern Spain on Tuesday will open a collection of some of his most feted works, including "Joie de vivre," usually housed in his eponymous museum in Antibes on the French Riviera.
Spain is showcasing the works of one of its favourite artistic sons throughout 2006 as it celebrates the 125th anniversary of the death of the cubism master as well as the return 25 years ago to Spanish soil of his iconic tableau "Guernica."
The work was Picasso's horrified reaction to a Basque village of the same name in northern Spain which Nazi bombers targeted during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39.
The apotheosis of the year's offerings will come in Madrid in early June when the Prado and Reina Sofia museums -- the latter housing "Guernica" -- will showcase his life's work.
In addition, Barcelona's Picasso Museum has since last month been celebrating his artistic contribution with its "passion of drawing" exhibition in his honour.
The "Picasso of Antibes" exhibition, which will be on show at Malaga's Picasso Museum through to June 17, is an "historic" event, according to gallery director Bernardo Laniado-Romero, as it is the first time the works in question have been shown outside the Chateau Grimaldi Museum in Antibes.
Picasso (1881-1973) worked at Antibes for two months in 1946 ensconced on the Cote d'Azur with new partner Francoise Gilot, painting 23 pictures and also sketching 44 drawings, the optimistic works designed to reflect the hope and the euphoria of the immediate post-war period.
For the artist the period came at the end of a troubled decade marked by a relationship with photographer Dora Maar, a period the Picasso Museum in Paris is currently showcasing.
"He was 65, was rebuilding his life and was going to be a father once again," daughter-in-law Christine Ruiz Picasso said Monday.
"Thus his themes were Mediterranean: the sun, love, renewal -- themes not so often evoked by Picasso" she told reporters.
Such works include "Joie de Vivre," an "icon of the 20th Century", which had never previously left Antibes, according to Antibes director Jean-Louis Andrade.
The Antibes museum is currently closed for renovation.
According to Andrade, the dozens of paintings, drawings, ceramics and sculptures which have come to Malaga "have retained all their freshness -- you'd say they were paintings for today."
Some 20 contemporary pictures by Polish artist Michel Sjamewski complete the exhibition.
For Laniado-Romero, "2005 was the year of Cervantes and Don Quixote in Spain and 2006 is the year of Picasso."
Picasso was born in Malaga but left in 1901 and settled in Paris three years later.
He vowed not to return to Spain while General Francisco Franco was in power and never did.
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AFPLifestyle-Spain-Picasso
AFP 131916 GMT 03 06
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