Pablo Picasso was born in Málaga in
1881. A naturally gifted artist, he
moved with his family to Barcelona in
1895. He spent a year studying at the
Barcelona School of Fine Arts, and won a
gold medal with his large academic
canvas, Science and Charity, which is
now on display in
Museo Picasso, Barcelona. He went on
to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in
Madrid, when he was 16, but only stayed
a few months before he opened his first
studio in Barcelona.
Picasso spent the four years from 1900
between Paris and Barcelona. He painted
pictures of the bohemian life in Paris,
and was most heavily influenced by the
works of Degas, and Toulouse-Latrec. His
Blue Room, painted in 1901, is the best
example of this. It is now on display in
the Phillips Collection in Washington,
D.C. Because various shades of blue
dominated his rather melancholic
paintings from 1901 until 1904 it has
become known as his Blue Period.
He finally settled in Paris in 1904. His
paintings now became far more cheerful,
and the blue was replaced by pink. This
Rose Period lasted for the next year or
so, and a common theme of the paintings
that he produced during this time was
the circus. The Family of Saltimbanques,
painted in 1905, is on display in the
National Gallery in Washington, D.C.
This is the first of many paintings
where Picasso used the figure of the
harlequin to represent his alter ego.
Picasso began to attract more
influential patrons, and painted
numerous portraits. One of Gertrude
Stein, the American writer, now hangs in
the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New
York.
In 1906, Picasso produced pieces that
were heavily influenced by Greek,
Iberian, and African art and entered his
Cubism period. This is evident in Les
Demoiselles d'Avignon, which is now on
display in the Museum of Modern Art in
New York. The picture includes heavily
distorted figures that are recreated as
having components, rather than natural
body form, typical of Cubism. He
produced a number of works including a
portrait of Daniel Henry Kahnweiler.
This is now on display in the Art
Institute of Chicago. Picasso’s cubism
took on another dimension when he began
working on collages with paper and
cloth. His first collage, Still Life
with Chair Caning, is on display in the
Musée Picasso in Paris. He also produced
a number of fine pencil drawings
including a portrait, Vollard, which now
hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
in New York.
Picasso also revolutionized sculpture by
creating pieces from everyday materials.
One example, Guitar, is made of
cardboard, paper, and string, and is on
display in the Musée Picasso in Paris.
As this technique was taken up by other
sculptors of the time, it became known
as Constructivism.
Picasso’s love life also had an
influence on his work. He painted
realistic portraits of his first wife,
and son, in the early years from 1917.
However, as the marriage disintegrated
he moved into darker, more surrealistic
images during the mid-1920s. He fell in
love again, in the early 1930s, and his
paintings took on another lighter mood.
However, his most important work,
Guernica, was a far darker picture.
It was influenced by events during the
Spanish Civil War. It now hangs in the
Reina Sofía Art Centre in Madrid.
Picasso died in 1973.
