Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar

Mudejar wall, Zaragoza Cathedral

At the Guggenheim, Bilbao for the exhibition ‘Windows on the City: The School of Paris, 1900 – 1945’, a collection of works executed in the French capital in the first half of the twentieth century, from Cubism to Orphism to Surrealism.

Pablo Picasso ‘La Moulin de la Galette’ (1900)

Georges Braque ‘Piano and Mandola’ (1909- 10)

Marc Chagall ‘The Soldier Drinks’ (1911 – 12)

Robert Delaunay ‘Tour Eiffel, rouge’ (1911)

Robert Delaunay ‘Circular Forms’ (1930)

R.I.P. Dave Swarbrick, a wonderful musician, who has died aged 75. Thanks for some fantastic memories with Fairport Convention.

At the Picasso Museum, Paris, for an excellent exhibition of sculpture from throughout his career, as well as an opportunity to see the works in the permanent collection.

Pablo Picasso ‘La Verre d’Absinthe’ (1914)

Pablo Picasso ‘Head of a Woman’ (1931 – 32)

Pablo Picasso ‘Woman with Hat’ (1961)

Pablo Picasso ‘Self Portrait’ (1901)

Pablo Picasso ‘Corrida – La Mort du Torero’ (1933)

Pablo Picasso ‘Portrait of Marie-Thérèse’ (1937)

In Paris for the exhibition ‘Paul Klee – L’Ironie a l’Oeuvre’ at Centre Pompidou. A fascinating retrospective of Klee’s career from his early satirical drawings, through his association with Der Blaue Reiter and as a master at the Bauhaus.

Paul Klee ‘Saint-Germain near Tunis’ (1914)

Paul Klee ‘Pictorial Architecture Red Yellow Blue (1923)

Paul Klee ‘Highways and By-Ways’ (1929)

Paul Klee ‘Struck from the List’ (1933)

A beautiful sunny spring day in the Spanish fishing port of Denia.

Very sad news that Pierre Boulez, one of contemporary classical music’s most important figures, has died at the age of 90.

Boulez was a composer and conductor who took contemporary music in radical new directions, including incorporating electronic music.

In conducting he concentrated on the modern repertoire and held positions with many of the world’s great orchestras, including the Cleveland Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

An excellent performance of Alban Berg’s ‘Lulu’, live in HD from New York Metropolitan Opera. Wonderfully directed and designed by William Kentridge. Marlis Peterson in the title role was superb.

At ‘Les Abattoirs’, Toulouse, for the exhibition ‘Picasso: Horizon Mythologique’, a collection of works produced in the 1920s and 1930s. Whilst the highlight is the stage curtain produced for Romain Rolland’s play ‘Le 14 juillet’, there is also a series of paintings from this period with the theme of the seaside.

Pablo Picasso ‘La dépouille du Minotaure en costume d’Arlequin’ (1936)

Pablo Picasso ‘Figures au bord de la mer’ (1931)

Picasso ‘Joueurs de ballons sur la plage’ (1928)

Ossip Zadkine (1890 – 1967) was a Russian-born artist and sculptor who spent most of his life in France. He was part of the Cubist group in Paris from 1914 to 1925. In 1934 he moved to the village of Les Arques in the Lot region of France, where he completed many of his most important works.

Ossip Zadkine ‘La grande prisonniere’ (1943)

Ossip Zadkine ‘Trio Musical’ (1930)

Ossip Zadkine ‘Diane chasseresse’ (1940)

Ossip Zadkine (1936)