20 Euros Picasso

Spain's 1997 commemorative program included several copper-nickel issues aimed squarely at the collector market — pieces that never entered circulation and were sold directly through the Real Casa de la Moneda. Picasso was born in Málaga in 1881 and died a French resident in 1973, having refused to return to Spain while Franco governed. That political estrangement is quietly ironic given that the Spanish state eventually claimed him as a national cultural figure worth commemorating on currency.