Rosario Peiró will be the new director of the Picasso Museum

BarcelonaThe Valencian art historian Rosario Peiró Carrasco (Beniarjó, 1968) will be the new director of the Museu Picasso starting in May 2026, after being unanimously selected through a competitive process. She will replace Emmanuel Guigon, who has directed the museum for a decade, since 2016. The museum's foundation thanks her for having "strengthened its international profile, increased its local audience, and consolidated a high-level exhibition program." The Picasso is the second most visited art museum in the country, second only to the Dalí Museum: last year it received more than one million visitors. Rosario Peiró will thus return to Barcelona, ​​where she earned her degree in geography and history from the University of Barcelona and where she primarily pursued her career before moving in 2008 to the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, where she arrived under the guidance of Manuel Borja-Villel as head of collections. In Madrid he has directed highly acclaimed exhibitions, such as Rethinking Guernicadedicated precisely to the work of Picasso, and had participated in the remodeling of the museum's collection with a modern perspective, including previously overlooked aspects such as exile and architecture.

Peiró holds a master's degree in contemporary art theory and criticism from Hunter College at New York University. In 1996, she began working with institutions such as MoMA, and over the years she has collaborated with leading institutions like the Centre Pompidou, the Beyeler Foundation, the Musée National Picasso in Paris, and the Picasso Museum in Málaga, "consolidating a career linked to the international context," as highlighted by the Barcelona City Council in the announcement of the change. Peiró had previously worked at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, the La Caixa Foundation Cultural Centre, and on exhibition projects at MACBA.

The selection committee emphasized both the candidate's career and her knowledge of Pablo Picasso's work, as well as "her solid and committed strategic vision for the city of Barcelona." Peiró's project aims to further develop the idea of ​​an "open, accessible center committed to its surroundings" and consolidate Barcelona as an international center for Picasso studies. This vision of the museum as a space that shapes the city and serves as an international benchmark is what convinced the jury.