Gary Kirkpatrick

Malaga has a large number of very good museums. We visited two on the Tuesday we arrived from Valencia, just a 45 minute flight from Valencia for the astounding price of 9 euros.

The Museo Automovilístico de Málaga has a large collection of expertly restored cars, and in an unusual twist, many are accompanied by fashions from the era. The owner of this private museum joined us for part of our visit, taking us beyond the ropes so we were able to get a close view of the interiors of several cars.

He told us he is looking for a new home, and is considering a move to Brooklyn, NY. He complains about the lack of government support in Malaga, and not enough visitors. He’s got a superb collection, the restorations done in his home country of Portugal.

In addition to the cars he’s exhibiting a find collection of high fashion, many of which match up with the cars they are displayed next to.

The Russian State Museum http://en.rusmuseum.ru/about/malaga/ has its main branch in St. Petersburg. We had the immense pleasure of visiting it during our month there. The branch is across the plaza from the car museum, housed in an old tobacco plant. The collection on the day of our visit lacked many of the better pieces to be found in St. Petersburg but still worth a visit. Here are two of the pieces I found more interesting.

The next day we hit a few more museums. First it was the Contemporary Art Museum, which sits along the river, entrance free amazingly enough.

Then we walked through the lovely old town, a pedestrian zone almost exclusively, to the Picasso Museum. Picasso was born here, but moved on to Paris in his early 20’s. There were something in excess of 100 of his paintings and drawings, whose unmistakable style which most people have seen before if they have seen any of his works at all. I found this one to be of greater interest than the others because the photo of the model, his wife at the time, Francoise Gilot, is posted with the painting. He did not do any drawing or painting as she posed for him. He stared for a good while and then told her she would not have to pose again. Take a look.

After a donor kabab and a bit of a rest we walked to the Museo del Vidrio y Cristal de Málaga https://www.museovidrioycristalmalaga.com/. We started the obligatory guided tour in Spanish with an expressive Spanish woman who took us up the stairs to start viewing some of the 3000+ pieces plus the furnishings of this private house. She explained that there are studio pieces and art pieces. The former is both designed and executed by the artist. Art pieces are those where the artist designs the piece but it is executed by a glass studio.

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