RAMALLAH, June 21 (JMCC) - A Pablo Picasso masterpiece went on display in Ramallah on Monday after two years of preparations,
reports the Associated Press.
The oil painting of a woman's face, Buste de Femme, is worth $7 million and is on loan from a Dutch museum.
The art director of the Palestinian academy, Khalid Horani, said it took two years to arrange the loan. He said the painting’s journey was “a story full of details and difficulties.”
The small art school in Ramallah put in the loan request in early 2010. Normally, such inter-museum exchanges are routine and take about six months to coordinate.
“Nothing is normal over here,” Horani said. “We planned to have an art work here, but found ourselves going through all the political complications.”
Horani said the painting was flown from Amsterdam to Tel Aviv and was then escorted to Ramallah by an Israeli security company before going on display. He said the uprisings in the Arab world also postponed the artwork’s delivery.
The painting is the most valuable and prestigious Western artwork ever shown in the West Bank. It is the centerpiece of the “Picasso In Palestine” exhibit in Ramallah aimed at introducing Western art to the Palestinians.
The 39 by 31 inch (100 by 80 centimeter) oil-on-canvas work — a cubist deconstruction of a woman’s face, dominated by gray hues — is the Dutch museum’s most valuable piece of art. It has traveled before to Sao Paolo, Brazil.