Interview with Álvaro Martínez-Novillo

Álvaro Martínez-Novillo (Madrid, 1948) was deputy director-general of Plastic Arts in Spain’s Ministry of Culture the year Guernica (1937) arrived in Spain. With Javier Tusell as the general director of Fine Art, he witnessed, first-hand, negotiations between Spain and the USA to agree on Pablo Picasso’s work landing in Madrid-Barajas Airport in 1981. In this video Martínez-Novillo looks back over the key aspects of this undertaking, in addition to the complexities of Picasso’s will, his descendants’ opinions, discussions around where in Spain the work should hang, the possible depoliticisation of the work to safeguard its protection and the vital importance of figures such as Cyrus Vance, the former US Secretary of State, and Roland Dumas, the executor of Picasso’s will.