English and the World · Spain · 19 · Málaga · A1–C2 · Free
The square where Picasso was born and watched the pigeons, the church where he was baptised, the school where his father taught, and the museum that brought his work home. Choose your level.
Plaza de la Merced, Málaga
Pablo Picasso was born in Málaga on 25 October 1881, in a house in the Plaza de la Merced. Today the house is a museum.
His father, José Ruiz, was a painter and an art teacher. He loved painting pigeons, and there were a lot of pigeons in the square.
Little Pablo could draw very well when he was very young. When he was nine, he could draw pigeons and bullfights, but people say he couldn’t do maths very well!
In 1891, when Pablo was nearly ten, the family moved to A Coruña, in the north of Spain. Later he lived in Barcelona and in France, and he became one of the most famous artists in the world.
A walk in the old town
Today you can visit the house where he was born. You can see the church where he was baptised, the church of Santiago.
In the square there is a statue of Picasso. He is sitting on a bench with a notebook and a pencil. You can sit next to him and take a photo!
Near the square there is the Museo Picasso Málaga. It opened in 2003, and you can see more than 230 of his works there.
Language: can and could
| What | How | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Ability or possibility now | can / can’t + verb | You can sit next to the statue. |
| Ability in the past | could / couldn’t + verb | He could draw very well when he was young. |
| Questions | Can you…? Could he…? | Could he paint when he was nine? Yes, he could. |
⚠️ After can and could, use the verb without to: he could draw, not ✗ he could to draw.
Read the texts first. Press “Check my answers” at the end.
Choose the best answer.
1. Where was Picasso born?
2. What did his father love painting?
3. Where did the family move in 1891?
4. What is the statue doing?
Write can or can’t.
5. You visit the house where he was born.
6. You see more than 230 of his works in the museum.
7. Pigeons paint pictures!
8. You sit next to the statue.
Write could or couldn’t.
9. Pablo draw very well when he was young.
10. People say he do maths very well.
11. When he was nine, he draw bullfights.
12. His father paint beautiful pigeons.
Go there!
Walk: the Plaza de la Merced (the house where he was born, and the statue) → the church of Santiago in Calle Granada → the Museo Picasso Málaga in Calle San Agustín. All three are a few minutes apart.
Your task: write five sentences about what you could and couldn’t do when you were a child, and what you can do now.
The square and the pigeons
In lesson 14 we passed through the Plaza de la Merced, with the obelisk of Torrijos in the middle. On one side of the square stands a yellow building where, in 1881, a baby was born who would change the history of art.
Read the two texts, then do the practice.
Málaga, 1881–1891
Pablo Ruiz Picasso was born in the Plaza de la Merced on 25 October 1881 and baptised in the nearby church of Santiago, with a name of more than a dozen parts. His father, José Ruiz Blasco, was a painter who taught drawing at the San Telmo School of Fine Arts and looked after the city’s museum. He loved painting pigeons, and the square was full of them.
According to family stories, Pablo began drawing almost before he could talk, and his father taught him to draw with care and precision. By the age of nine, the boy enjoyed sketching pigeons and bullfights, and he kept copying his father’s pictures until his own style appeared. According to a family legend, when José saw his son’s talent, he stopped painting and gave Pablo his brushes. Whether that is true or not, the boy never stopped drawing.
In 1891, after the city museum closed, José was offered a job in A Coruña, and the family decided to move north. Picasso later lived in Barcelona and Paris, but he remembered spending his summers in Málaga as a boy.
From the square to the world
Picasso never forgot watching the pigeons in the square. Doves and pigeons appear again and again in his work, and in 1949 he drew the dove that became a famous symbol of peace.
For a long time Málaga had very little of his art, but Picasso had said he would like his work to be shown in the city where he was born. In 2003, thirty years after his death, the Museo Picasso Málaga opened in the 16th-century Buenavista Palace, with more than 230 works given by his daughter-in-law and grandson, Christine and Bernard Ruiz-Picasso. The house where he was born is now a museum too, and in the square a bronze Picasso sits on a bench, notebook in hand. Visitors love sitting beside him for a photo.
Language: gerunds and infinitives
| After… | Use | Example |
|---|---|---|
| enjoy, keep, finish, mind, practise | -ing | He enjoyed sketching. He kept copying. |
| decide, want, hope, offer, learn, would like | to + verb | The family decided to move. |
| love, like, begin, start | -ing or to + verb (little difference) | He loved painting / loved to paint pigeons. |
| teach / allow / want + person | person + to + verb | His father taught him to draw. |
| stop, remember, forget | different meanings! | He stopped painting (no more painting). He stopped to paint (he stopped in order to paint). |
⚠️ remember / forget + -ing = a memory of the past (he remembered spending summers there); remember / forget + to = something you must do (remember to buy a ticket).
Fact or not sure?
| Statement | Status | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Picasso was born in the Plaza de la Merced | Fact | The house is now a museum. |
| The newborn was thought dead, and revived with cigar smoke | Not sure | A famous family story; we can’t check it. |
| His father gave up painting when he saw his son’s talent | Not sure | A legend, told by Picasso and his biographers. |
| Picasso drew the dove of peace in 1949 | Fact | It was used for a peace congress in Paris. |
Read both texts first. Press “Check my answers” at the end. You can try again as many times as you like.
Choose the best answer.
1. What was Picasso’s father’s job?
2. Why did the family move to A Coruña?
3. What connects the square and the dove of peace?
4. Where is the Museo Picasso Málaga?
5. Who gave the museum its collection?
6. How does the text treat the story that his father gave up painting?
Write the verb in the right form (-ing or to + verb).
7. As a boy, Pablo enjoyed (sketch) pigeons.
8. In 1891 the family decided (move) to A Coruña.
9. His father taught him (draw) with precision.
10. He kept (copy) his father’s pictures.
11. Picasso remembered (spend) his summers in Málaga.
12. Picasso said he would like his work (be) shown in Málaga.
Choose the best answer.
13. “His father stopped painting.” What does it mean?
14. “They stopped to look at the statue.” What does it mean?
15. Which sentence is about something you must do?
16. Which sentence is correct?
Where do these words come from?
17. Pigeon comes from Latin pipio. What did it mean?
18. Museum comes from Greek mouseion. What was it?
19. A sketch comes, through Dutch and Italian, from Greek schedios. What did it mean?
The Picasso walk
Route (about two hours): the Plaza de la Merced (the house where he was born, now a museum, and the bronze statue) → the church of Santiago in Calle Granada, where he was baptised → the Museo Picasso Málaga in Calle San Agustín → the Plaza de la Constitución, where his father taught at San Telmo. Check opening times before you go.
Your task: write about your own childhood (100–120 words): what you loved doing, what you decided to do, what you remember seeing. Use at least six gerunds and infinitives.
Málaga, 1881–1891
It was in the Plaza de la Merced that Pablo Ruiz Picasso was born, on 25 October 1881, and in the nearby church of Santiago that he was baptised, under a name of more than a dozen parts that he would later reduce to his mother’s surname. What shaped him first was not a school but a household: his father, José Ruiz Blasco, was a painter, a teacher of drawing at the San Telmo School of Fine Arts, and the curator of the city’s museum, and the subject he returned to most was the pigeons that crowded the square outside their door.
Family stories, which Picasso himself later polished, surround these years. One holds that the newborn was so still that the midwife gave him up for dead, and that an uncle revived him with a puff of cigar smoke; another, that José, seeing his son’s gifts, handed over his brushes and never painted again. Neither can be verified, and both have the shape of legends told after the fact. What the documents do show is a child copying his father’s pigeons and drawing bullfights by the age of nine, and a family that left for A Coruña in 1891, when the museum closed and José took a post there.
From 1891 to today
Picasso returned to Málaga as a boy, but his life and work belonged to Barcelona and, above all, to France, where he lived for most of the 20th century and where he died in 1973. It was the pigeons of the Merced, many have argued, that lie behind the birds that fly through his work, including the dove of 1949 that became an international symbol of peace; the link is attractive, though impossible to prove.
For decades his birthplace owned almost nothing he had made. What changed this was the generosity of his family: in 2003, thirty years after his death, the Museo Picasso Málaga opened in the 16th-century Buenavista Palace, with more than 230 works given by his daughter-in-law Christine and his grandson Bernard Ruiz-Picasso. All the city had to do, in a sense, was provide a palace; what it gained was a new identity as a city of art, and the museum became the first step in Málaga’s reinvention as a city of museums.
Language: cleft sentences for emphasis
| What we do | Form | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Focus on one element | It is / was + focus + that / who + clause | It was in the Plaza de la Merced that he was born. |
| Focus on the new information at the end | What + clause + is / was + focus | What shaped him first was a household. |
| Focus on an action | What + subject + did was + (to) verb | What his family did was (to) give 230 works. |
| Focus on “only this” | All + clause + was + focus | All the city had to do was provide a palace. |
| Contrast the true with the false | It wasn’t X that…, it was Y | It wasn’t a school that shaped him; it was his home. |
Evidence and debate
| Claim | What we can say |
|---|---|
| He was revived at birth with cigar smoke | A family story, retold by Picasso; not verifiable. |
| His father gave him his brushes and stopped painting | A legend; it has the shape of a story told afterwards. |
| The pigeons of the Merced inspired the dove of peace | Attractive and plausible, but impossible to prove. |
| The museum began Málaga’s reinvention as a city of art | A widely shared judgement, supported by what followed (the Carmen Thyssen, the Centre Pompidou). |
Debate: Picasso left Málaga at nine and made his life elsewhere. Can a city fairly claim an artist who spent so little of his life there? What does a birthplace owe to its famous children, and they to it?
Read both texts first. Press “Check my answers” at the end.
Choose the best answer.
1. Why does the writer say the family stories “have the shape of legends told after the fact”?
2. What do “the documents” show, according to the writer?
3. How does the writer treat the link between the pigeons and the dove of peace?
4. “All the city had to do, in a sense, was provide a palace.” What is the writer suggesting?
5. Why does the writer mention the Carmen Thyssen and the Centre Pompidou?
6. What is the point of the debate question?
Write the missing words.
7. in the Plaza de la Merced that Picasso was born.
8. shaped him first was his home.
9. It was his father taught him to draw.
10. What his family was give the city 230 works.
11. the city had to do was provide a palace.
12. It a school that shaped him; it was his home.
Choose the best answer.
13. Which sentence is correct?
14. Which sentence emphasises the museum, as opposed to anything else?
15. Which is correct?
16. “It wasn’t Picasso who chose to leave; it was his father’s job.” What does the sentence do?
Where do these words come from?
17. Cubism got its name, according to a famous story, from a critic who said the paintings were made of…
18. Palette, the painter’s board, comes from French pelle. What is a pelle?
19. Genius comes from Latin. What was a Roman genius?
The Picasso walk
Visit: the birthplace museum in the Plaza de la Merced (and the bronze Picasso on his bench), the church of Santiago, the Museo Picasso Málaga in the Buenavista Palace, and the Plaza de la Constitución, where the San Telmo school stood. End at the obelisk of Torrijos, in the same square where Picasso first watched the pigeons.
Write (220–260 words): a short feature for a cultural magazine: Picasso and Málaga: whose artist? Separate legend from evidence, and use at least five cleft sentences.