Picasso & Paper: Málaga lights up Piccadilly Circus

Held at the Royal Academy of Arts' headquarters in Burlington House until April 13, the display offers an unrepeatable insight into the Guernika artist's paper creations.

They include a 4.8-metre (15'9”) collage titled Mujeres en su Tocador ('Women at their Toilet'), which Picasso produced between 1937 and 1938 and which has not been shown in the UK in over 50 years.

Collages, preliminary sketches of Picasso's masterpiece Las Señoritas de Aviñon ('The Maidens of Avignon'), and documents are among the unseen – by most of the public, at least – 'paper features' of what is proving to be an immensely popular exhibition.

Most of the pieces are on loan from the Musée Nationale de Picasso in Paris, but many are from other sources.

The exhibition is jointly organised by Cleveland Museum of Arts in Ohio, USA, along with Málaga tourist board and the Royal Academy of Arts itself.

Given that the largest international tourism market on the Costa del Sol is already the UK – 151,375 Brits stayed in Málaga city alone in 2019, not even counting the other popular beach towns in the province – one would assume any advertising seeking to attract British holidaymakers to this part of the world would be like selling coals to Newcastle, or oranges to Valencia; but Málaga wants to ensure this continues even in the face of uncertainty and fear surrounding Brexit and the Coronavirus.

In fact, last year showed no signs of Brexit being a problem for Málaga's British tourism market: hotel stays in the city were up by 5.43%, holiday apartment rentals by 16.46% and the overall number of UK visitors rose by 1.17% compared with 2018, with an average stay of 3.38 days.

But the Picasso & Paper exhibition is also a chance for Málaga to show that the city and wider province are not just about sun-drenched beaches – that it is also one of Spain's top cultural destinations, and is the birthplace of the surrealist mid-20^th century artist.

The above photograph, advertising the Picasso display, is supplied by Málaga city council.