Picasso and Jacqueline Roque, his second wife.

In 2018, Catherine Hutin-Blay, Pablo Picasso’s step-daughter by his second wife Jacqueline Roque, had announced plans to open what would have been the world’s largest museum dedicated to the artist. Set to open in November of 2021, the museum was to be located in the South of France.

Catherine Hutin-Blay was Picasso’s step-daughter.

Hutin-Blay had negotiated to convert an old convent named the Couvent des Prêcheurs in the French town of Aix-en-Provence into a museum showcasing the influence her mother, Jacqueline Roque, had on Picasso’s artistic career. The plan to build the museum, which would have been named the Musée Jacqueline et Pablo Picasso, has been scrapped after issues during negotiations.

Back in December 2017, Hutin-Blay agreed to purchase the property for €11.5 million EUR (approx. $14.1 million USD). This price was approved by members of the Aix-en-Provence community, despite it being below the property’s value of €12.2 million EUR ($15.2 million USD), because they anticipated that the museum would become a major tourist destination with an expected yearly visitor count of 500,000.

Picturesque town of Aix-en-Provence in the South of France.

The town also wanted to include a clause in the contract that would require the institution to remain as a museum for the next 15 years, including the five years of construction. Ultimately, Hutin-Blay would not agree to this clause and terminated the deal. “We had to get that guarantee,” Aix mayor Maryse Joissains Masini stated in a Facebook post. “It was this last clause that Catherine Hutin refused to include in the sale agreement even though she had initially accepted it.”

The Musée Jacqueline et Pablo Picasso was set to span 16,000 square feet of exhibition space, including a 200-seat auditorium, pottery and printmaking facilities, and research facility.