Museo Casa Natal Picasso

The Museo Casa Natal Picasso stands at Plaza de la Merced 15 in Málaga, in Spain's Andalusia region, in the building where Pablo Picasso was born on 25 October 1881. The house, in a 19th-century residential block on one of the old town's best-known squares, was converted into a museum and is run by the Fundación Picasso. Its rooms are laid out to show the family's life in the period, with reconstructed 19th-century furnishings, and personal items and documents from the Ruiz Picasso family. Upper floors hold a collection of the artist's works, drawings, ceramics and engravings, with a rotating programme of temporary exhibitions about his life and legacy, and a library and archive that specialist researchers use. Visitors see early family photographs, baptism records and objects connected to Picasso's father, José Ruiz Blasco, a painter and art teacher. The experience is more intimate than the larger Museo Picasso Málaga and works well as a companion visit to it. A tour takes about 45 to 60 minutes. The best photograph angle is of the façade from the square, where a statue of the artist sits on a bench. Crowds are lightest on weekday mornings, and the busy periods are around midday and on free-entry afternoons. Admission is about €4, with free entry on Sundays from 16:00 and on certain museum days, with tickets available through fundacionpicasso.malaga.eu. The square is also lively with cafés and a Sunday market atmosphere, so visitors can easily extend the outing with a coffee in Plaza de la Merced.