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Pablo Picasso

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Artists

   Pablo Picasso ( October 25, 1881 – April 8, 1973) was a Spanish painter
   and sculptor. One of the most recognized figures in 20th century art,
   he is best known as the co-founder, along with Georges Braque, of
   cubism. It has been estimated that Picasso produced about 13,500
   paintings or designs, 100,000 prints or engravings, 34,000 book
   illustrations and 300 sculptures or ceramics.

Career

Early life

   An 1896 self-portrait.
   Enlarge
   An 1896 self-portrait.

   Pablo Picasso was born in Málaga, Spain, the first child of José Ruiz y
   Blasco and María Picasso y López.

   Picasso's father was Jose Ruíz, a painter whose specialty was the
   naturalistic depiction of birds, and who for most of his life was also
   a professor of art at the School of Crafts and a curator of a local
   museum. The young Picasso showed a passion and a skill for drawing from
   an early age; according to his mother, his first word was "piz," a
   shortening of lapiz, the Spanish word for pencil. It was from his
   father that Picasso had his first formal academic art training, such as
   figure drawing and painting in oil. Although Picasso attended carpenter
   schools throughout his childhood, often those where his father taught,
   he never finished his college-level course of study at the Academy of
   Arts (Academia de San Fernando) in Madrid, leaving after less than a
   year.

Personal life

   Picasso's friend Gertrude Stein, who had more than 80 sittings for this
   1906 portrait.
   Enlarge
   Picasso's friend Gertrude Stein, who had more than 80 sittings for this
   1906 portrait.

   In the early years of the twentieth century, Picasso, still a
   struggling youth, began a long term relationship with Fernande Olivier.
   It is she who appears in many of the Rose period paintings. After
   garnering fame and some fortune, Picasso left Olivier for Marcelle
   Humbert, whom Picasso called Eva. Picasso included declarations of his
   love for Eva in many Cubist works.

   In Paris, Picasso entertained a distinguished coterie of friends in the
   Montmartre and Montparnasse quarters, including André Breton, Guillaume
   Apollinaire, and writer Gertrude Stein. He maintained a number of
   mistresses in addition to his wife or primary partner. Picasso was
   married twice and had four children by three women.

   In 1918, Picasso married Olga Khokhlova, a ballerina with Sergei
   Diaghilev's troupe, for whom Picasso was designing a ballet, Parade, in
   Rome. Khokhlova introduced Picasso to high society, formal dinner
   parties, and all the social niceties attendant on the life of the rich
   in 1920s Paris. The two had a son, Paulo, who would grow up to be a
   dissolute motorcycle racer and chauffeur to his father.

   Khokhlova's insistence on social propriety clashed with Picasso's
   bohemian tendencies and the two lived in a state of constant conflict.
   In 1927 Picasso met 17 year old Marie-Thérèse Walter and began a secret
   affair with her. Picasso's marriage to Khokhlova soon ended in
   separation rather than divorce, as French law required an even division
   of property in the case of divorce, and Picasso did not want Khokhlova
   to have half his wealth. The two remained legally married until
   Khokhlova's death in 1955.

   Picasso carried on a long-standing affair with Walter and fathered a
   daughter, Maia, with her. Marie-Thérèse lived in the vain hope that
   Picasso would one day marry her, and hanged herself four years after
   Picasso's death.

   The photographer and painter Dora Maar was also a constant companion
   and lover of Picasso. The two were closest in the late 1930s and early
   1940s and it was Maar who documented the painting of Guernica.
   From left to right, Manuel Ortiz de Zárate, Henri-Pierre Roché (in
   uniform), Marie Vassilieff, Max Jacob and Pablo Picasso (1915).
   Enlarge
   From left to right, Manuel Ortiz de Zárate, Henri-Pierre Roché (in
   uniform), Marie Vassilieff, Max Jacob and Pablo Picasso (1915).

   After the liberation of Paris in 1944, Picasso began to keep company
   with a young art student, Françoise Gilot. The two eventually became
   lovers, and had two children together, Claude, and Paloma. Unique among
   Picasso's women, Gilot left Picasso in 1953, allegedly because of
   abusive treatment and infidelities. This came as a severe blow to
   Picasso.

   He went through a difficult period after Gilot's departure, coming to
   terms with his advancing age and his perception that, now in his 70s,
   he was no longer attractive, but rather grotesque to young women. A
   number of ink drawings from this period explore this theme of the
   hideous old dwarf as buffoonish counterpoint to the beautiful young
   girl, including several from a six-week affair with Geneviève Laporte,
   who in June 2005 auctioned off the drawings Picasso made of her.

   Picasso was not long in finding another lover, Jacqueline Roque. Roque
   worked at the Madoura Pottery, where Picasso made and painted ceramics.
   The two remained together for the rest of Picasso's life, marrying in
   1961. Their marriage was also the means of one last act of revenge
   against Gilot. Gilot had been seeking a legal means to legitimize her
   children with Picasso, Claude and Paloma. With Picasso's encouragement,
   she had arranged to divorce her then husband, Luc Simon, and marry
   Picasso to secure her children's rights. Picasso then secretly married
   Roque after Gilot had filed for divorce in order to exact his revenge
   for her leaving him.

   Picasso had constructed a huge gothic structure and could afford large
   villas in the south of France, at Notre-dame-de-vie on the outskirts of
   Mougins, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Although he was a
   celebrity, there was often as much interest in his personal life as his
   art.

   In addition to his manifold artistic accomplishments, Picasso had a
   film career, including a cameo appearance in Jean Cocteau's Testament
   of Orpheus. Picasso always played himself in his film appearances. In
   1955 he helped make the film Le Mystère Picasso (The Mystery of
   Picasso) directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot.

   Pablo Picasso died on April 8, 1973 in Mougins, France, while Picasso
   and his wife Jacqueline entertained friends for dinner. His final words
   were "Drink to me, drink to my health, you know I can't drink any
   more." He was interred at Castle Vauvenargues' park, in Vauvenargues,
   Bouches-du-Rhône. Jacqueline Roque prevented his children Claude and
   Paloma from attending the funeral.

Pacifism

   Picasso remained neutral during the Spanish Civil War, World War I and
   World War II, refusing to fight for any side or country. Picasso never
   commented on this but encouraged the idea that it was because he was a
   pacifist. Some of his contemporaries (including Braque) felt that this
   neutrality had more to do with cowardice than principle. As a Spanish
   citizen living in France, Picasso was under no compulsion to fight
   against the invading Germans in either world war. In the Spanish Civil
   War, service for Spaniards living abroad was optional and would have
   involved a voluntary return to the country to join either side. While
   Picasso expressed anger and condemnation of Franco and the Fascists
   through his art he did not take up arms against them.

   He also remained aloof from the Catalan independence movement during
   his youth despite expressing general support and being friendly with
   activists within it. No political movement seemed to compel his support
   to any great degree, though he did become a member of the Communist
   Party.

   During the Second World War, Picasso remained in Paris when the Germans
   occupied the city. The Nazis hated his style of painting, so he was not
   able to show his works during this time. Retreating to his studio, he
   continued to paint all the while. Although the Germans outlawed bronze
   casting in Paris, Picasso continued regardless, using bronze smuggled
   to him by the French resistance.

   Arguably Picasso's most famous work is his depiction of the German
   bombing of Gernika, Spain — Guernica. This large canvas embodies for
   many the inhumanity, brutality and hopelessness of war.

   After the Second World War, Picasso rejoined the French Communist
   Party, and even attended an international peace conference in Poland.
   But party criticism of a portrait of Stalin as insufficiently realistic
   cooled Picasso's interest in Communist politics, though he remained a
   loyal member of the Communist Party until his death. His beliefs tended
   towards anarcho-communism.

Picasso's work

   Picasso's work is often categorized into "periods". While the names of
   many of his later periods are debated, the most commonly accepted
   periods in his work are the Blue Period (1901–1904), the Rose Period
   (1905–1907), the African-influenced Period (1908–1909), Analytic Cubism
   (1909–1912), and Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919).

Before 1901

   Picasso's training under his father began before 1890. His progress can
   be traced in the collection of early works now held by the Museu
   Picasso in Barcelona, which provides one of the most comprehensive
   records extant of any major artist's beginnings. During 1893 the
   juvenile quality of his earliest work falls away; by 1894 his career as
   a painter can be said to begin. The academic realism apparent in the
   works of the mid-1890s is well displayed in The First Communion (1896),
   a large composition that depicts his sister, Lola. In the same year, at
   the age of 14, he painted Portrait of Aunt Pepa, a vigorous and
   dramatic portrait that has been called "without a doubt one of the
   greatest in the whole history of Spanish painting."

   In 1897 his realism became tinged with Symbolist influence, in a series
   of landscape paintings rendered in nonnaturalistic violet and green
   tones. What some call his Modernist period (1899-1900) followed. His
   exposure to the work of Rossetti, Steinlen, Toulouse-Lautrec and Edvard
   Munch, combined with his admiration for favorite old masters such as El
   Greco, led Picasso to a personal version of modernism in his works of
   this period.

Blue Period

   Picasso's Blue Period (1901–1904) consists of somber paintings rendered
   in shades of blue and blue-green, only occasionally warmed by other
   colors. This period's starting point is uncertain; it may have begun in
   Spain in the spring of 1901, or in Paris in the second half of the
   year. In his austere use of colour and sometimes doleful subject
   matter— prostitutes and beggars are frequent subjects—Picasso was
   influenced by a trip through Spain and by the suicide of his friend
   Carlos Casagemas. Starting in autumn of 1901 he painted several
   posthumous portraits of Casagemas, culminating in the gloomy
   allegorical painting La Vie, painted in 1903 and now in the Cleveland
   Museum of Art.

   The same mood pervades the well-known etching The Frugal Repast (1904),
   which depicts a blind man and a sighted woman, both emaciated, seated
   at a nearly bare table. Blindness is a recurrent theme in Picasso's
   works of this period, also represented in The Blindman's Meal (1903,
   the Metropolitan Museum of Art) and in the portrait of Celestina
   (1903). Other frequent subjects are artists, acrobats and harlequins.
   The harlequin, a comedic character usually depicted in checkered
   patterned clothing, became a personal symbol for Picasso.

Rose Period

   The Rose Period (1905–1907) is characterized by a more cheery style
   with orange and pink colors, and again featuring many harlequins.
   Picasso met Fernande Olivier, a model for sculptors and artists, in
   Paris in 1904, and many of these paintings are influenced by his warm
   relationship with her, in addition to his increased exposure to French
   painting.

African-influenced Period

   Picasso's African-influenced Period (1907–1909) begins with the two
   figures on the right in his painting, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, which
   were inspired by African artifacts. Formal ideas developed during this
   period lead directly into the Cubist period that follows.

Analytic Cubism

   Analytic Cubism (1909–1912) is a style of painting Picasso developed
   along with Braque using monochrome brownish colours. Both artists took
   apart objects and "analyzed" them in terms of their shapes. Picasso and
   Braque's paintings at this time are very similar to each other.

Synthetic Cubism

   Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919) is a further development of Cubism in
   which cut paper fragments—often wallpaper or portions of newspaper
   pages—are pasted into compositions, marking the first use of collage in
   fine art.

Classicism and Surrealism

   In the period following the upheaval of World War I Picasso produced
   work in a neoclassical style. This "return to order" is evident in the
   work of many European artists in the 1920s, including Derain, Giorgio
   de Chirico, and the artists of the New Objectivity movement. Picasso's
   paintings and drawings from this period frequently recall the work of
   Ingres.

   During the 1930s, the minotaur replaced the harlequin as a motif which
   he used often in his work. His use of the minotaur came partly from his
   contact with the surrealists, who often used it as their symbol, and
   appears in Picasso's Guernica.

   Arguably Picasso's most famous work is his depiction of the German
   bombing of Gernika, Spain — Guernica. This large canvas embodies for
   many the inhumanity, brutality and hopelessness of war. Guernica hung
   in New York's Museum of Modern Art for many years. In 1981 Guernica was
   returned to Spain and exhibited at the Casón del Buen Retiro. In 1992
   the painting hung in Madrid's Reina Sofía Museum when it opened.

Later works

   Picasso was one of 250 sculptors who exhibited in the 3rd Sculpture
   International held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the summer of
   1949. In the 1950s Picasso's style changed once again, as he took to
   producing reinterpretations of the art of the great masters. He made a
   series of works based on Velazquez's painting of Las Meninas. He also
   based paintings on works of art by Goya, Poussin, Manet, Courbet and
   Delacroix.

   He was commissioned to make a maquette for a huge 50 foot high public
   sculpture to be built in Chicago, known usually as the Chicago Picasso.
   He approached the project with a great deal of enthusiasm, designing a
   sculpture which was ambiguous and somewhat controversial. What the
   figure represents is not known; it could be a bird, a horse, a woman or
   a totally abstract shape. The sculpture, one of the most recognizable
   landmarks in downtown Chicago, was unveiled in 1967. Picasso refused to
   be paid $100,000 for it, donating it to the people of the city.

   Picasso's final works were a mixture of styles, his means of expression
   in constant flux until the end of his life. Devoting his full energies
   to his work, Picasso became more daring, his works more colourful and
   expressive, and from 1968 through 1971 he produced a torrent of
   paintings and hundreds of copperplate etchings. At the time these works
   were dismissed by most as pornographic fantasies of an impotent old man
   or the slapdash works of an artist who was past his prime. One long
   time admirer, Douglas Cooper, called them "the incoherent scribblings
   of a frenetic old man". Only later, after Picasso's death, when the
   rest of the art world had moved on from abstract expressionism, did the
   critical community come to see that Picasso had already discovered
   neo-expressionism and was, as so often before, ahead of his time.

Legacy

   Garçon à la pipe, which sold for US$104 million in 2004 — a record
   price at the time.
   Enlarge
   Garçon à la pipe, which sold for US$104 million in 2004 — a record
   price at the time.

   At the time of his death many of his paintings were in his possession,
   as he had kept off the art market what he didn't need to sell. In
   addition, Picasso had a considerable collection of the work of other
   famous artists, some his contemporaries, such as Henri Matisse, with
   whom he had exchanged works. Since Picasso left no will, his death
   duties (estate tax) to the French state were paid in the form of his
   works and others from his collection. These works form the core of the
   immense and representative collection of the Musée Picasso in Paris. In
   2003, relatives of Picasso inaugurated a museum dedicated to him in his
   birthplace, Málaga, Spain, the Museo Picasso Málaga.

   The Museu Picasso in Barcelona features many of Picasso's early works,
   created while he was living in Spain, including many rarely seen works
   which reveal Picasso's firm grounding in classical techniques. The
   museum also holds many precise and detailed figure studies done in his
   youth under his father's tutelage, as well as the extensive collection
   of Jaime Sabartés, Picasso's close friend from his Barcelona days who,
   for many years, was Picasso's personal secretary.

   In the aftermath of Picasso's death, at the suggestion of Dustin
   Hoffman, Paul McCartney wrote a song entitled "Picasso's Last Words
   (Drink To Me)" in tribute to him which was released on his album Band
   on the Run later that year.

   The film Surviving Picasso was made about Picasso in 1996, as seen
   through the eyes of Françoise Gilot. Anthony Hopkins played Picasso in
   the movie.

   Some paintings by Picasso rank among the most expensive paintings in
   the world.
     * " Nude on a Black Armchair" - sold for USD $45.1 million in 1999 to
       Les Wexner, who then donated it to the Wexner Centre for the Arts.
     * Les Noces de Pierrette - sold for more than USD $51 million in
       1999.
     * Garçon à la pipe- sold for USD $104 million at Sotheby's on May 4,
       2004, establishing a new price record.
     * Dora Maar au Chat - sold for USD $95.2 million at Sotheby's on May
       3, 2006.

Awards

     * International Lenin Peace Prize (1962)

Anecdotes and trivia

   A man once criticized Picasso for creating unrealistic art. Picasso
   asked him: "Can you show me some realistic art?" The man showed him a
   photograph of his wife. Picasso observed: "So your wife is two inches
   tall, two-dimensional, with no arms and no legs, and no colour but only
   shades of gray?"

   The Guinness Book of Records names Picasso as the most prolific painter
   ever.

   Picasso suffered from dyslexia.

Children

     * Paulo (February 4, 1921 - June 5, 1975) - with Olga Khokhlova
     * Maya (September 5, 1935 - ) - with Marie-Thérèse Walter
     * Claude - with Françoise Gilot
     * Paloma (1949 - ) - with Françoise Gilot

Lists of works

   L'Accordéoniste, a 1911 cubist painting by Picasso.
   Enlarge
   L'Accordéoniste, a 1911 cubist painting by Picasso.
     * List of Picasso artworks 1889-1900
     * List of Picasso artworks 1901-1910
     * List of Picasso artworks 1911-1920
     * List of Picasso artworks 1921-1930
     * List of Picasso artworks 1931-1940
     * List of Picasso artworks 1941-1950
     * List of Picasso artworks 1951-1960
     * List of Picasso artworks 1961-1970
     * List of Picasso artworks 1971-1973

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