Picasso’s Barcelona: in the footsteps of the artist as a young man

The Liceu theatre and opera house, where the Ballets Russes – including Olga Khokhlova, soon to be Picasso’s wife – performed in 1917. Photograph: Stefano Politi Markovina/Alamy

Pablo Ruiz Picasso was born in Málaga and spent most of his life in France, but it was arguably in Barcelona that his evolution as the most celebrated artist of the 20th century began.

The family moved to Barcelona in 1895 when Picasso was 13 and he lived and studied there for nine years before heading to Paris in 1904.