These are two passions that attract Pablo Picasso in Arles... Passion for the painter Vincent van Gogh and passion for bullfighting!
The Spanish painter made very strong friendships here.
With Jean-Maurice Rouquette, then director of Réattu Museum, or with the young photographer Lucien Clergue. The latter recounted in an interview in 2008 Pablo Picasso's itinerary on a bullfight day: "He first stopped for a drink at the Café Malarte, then he went up to the Arena via the Summer Garden. If the bullfights started late, he was made to wait at the antique dealers in the area. And after the show, he headed off to his hotel, the Nord Pinus. He used to stay there because it was the hotel for the bullfighters back then."
In 1971, Pablo Picasso sealed his attachment to Arles by offering the Réattu Museum (which had an exhibition dedicated to him in 1957) 57 drawings he carefully selected, representative of the long series on which he was working at the time (The Harlequin, the Musketeer, the Painter and his Model). These drawings, very fragile, are regularly exposed to the Musée Réattu.
