Life of Picasso: Who was Maya Ruiz Picasso?

Maya au bateau, Pablo Picasso, 1938
Pablo Picasso, "Maya au bateau", 1938
5 de febrero de 1938, Óleo sobre lienzo, 73 x 56 cm, Z. IX, 98. Yageo Foundation Colletion, Taiwán.
© Sucesión Picasso, VEGAP, Madrid, 2023

Today, 20 December 2022, Maya Ruiz Picasso, the second of Pablo Picasso's four children, passed away at the age of 87.   

She was born in 1935, the daughter of Marie-Thérèse Walter with whom Picasso had a relationship between 1927 and 1935. Maria de la Concepcion, her full name, inspired her father with unprecedented creative energy. Picasso never ceased to depict his daughter, from her early years to her adolescence, seeking to unravel the mysteries of childhood and to transcribe her joy and carefree nature. She also accompanied her father on numerous projects such as the filming of Henri-Georges Clouzot's Le Mystère Picasso.

The artist's daughter devoted much of her professional career to promoting the Picasso legacy, inaugurating with works from her collection the reopening of the Musée Picasso Paris in 2014, where the exhibition Picasso 1932 dedicated to her mother Marie-Thérèse Walter also took place.

In 2021, he made a donation of 9 masterpieces from his collection to the French state, considering that they should integrate the museum's national collections dedicated to his father. Before her death, she committed hrself to the Picasso Celebration 1973-2023 through loans from his collection to exhibitions that will take place in Spain, such as the one dedicated to his father's sculpture: Picasso. Body and Matter at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.