Pablo Picasso, the many lives of a modern master
Blue, rose, Cubist, classical, political, playful: Pablo Picasso reinvented himself again and again over a working life of more than seventy years.
Pablo Picasso1881 to 1973 · MálagaCubism
Pablo Picasso did not have one style. He had many, and he moved between them with a speed that still surprises people. Over a working life of more than seventy years he painted, drew, carved, modelled, printed and fired clay, and he helped to invent both and along the way. Here is a guide to the main chapters, the key works and the museums where you can see them.
A prodigy from Málaga
Pablo Ruiz Picasso was born in Málaga, in southern Spain, on 25 October 1881. His father, José Ruiz y Blasco, was a painter and art teacher who gave his son formal training from an early age. The family moved to A Coruña in 1891 and to Barcelona in 1895, where the teenage Picasso was admitted to the advanced classes of the city’s school of fine arts. He later enrolled at the Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid but soon stopped attending.
Barcelona gave him friends, cafés and a lively modern art scene. He first visited Paris in 1900 and returned several times before settling there in 1904, in a ramshackle studio building in Montmartre known as the Bateau-Lavoir. From then on France was where he lived and worked.
Blue, rose and a radical canvas
Between 1901 and 1904, in what is called his , Picasso painted beggars, blind men and mothers with children in cold blues and blue-greens. The mood is melancholy, and the period followed the death of his close friend Carles Casagemas. From around 1904 to 1906 came the Rose Period, warmer in colour and filled with acrobats, harlequins and circus families.
Then, in 1907, he painted Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Five nude women confront the viewer, their bodies broken into sharp planes, some of their faces recalling ancient Iberian sculpture and African masks. It was radical even by the standards of his own circle. The painting was not shown in public until 1916, and it has belonged to the Museum of Modern Art in New York since 1939.
Cubism, collage and taking things apart
From about 1908 Picasso worked closely with the French painter Georges Braque. Together they developed Cubism, which broke objects and figures into faceted planes and showed several viewpoints at once. In its early, analytic phase the colours were muted browns and greys, so that the eye concentrates on structure rather than on colour.
In 1912 Picasso glued a piece of oilcloth printed with a chair caning pattern onto an oval still life and framed it with rope. Still Life with Chair Caning is often described as the first Cubist collage, a word taken from the French coller, to glue. Braque developed , pictures built from pasted paper. Real materials had entered painting, and from now on pictures could be assembled from pieces as well as painted.
Real materials had entered painting, and from now on pictures could be assembled from pieces as well as painted.
After the First World War he surprised everyone again with monumental, classical figures, and in the later 1920s his work came close to the dreamlike distortions of the Surrealists. In 1918 he married the Russian ballet dancer Olga Khokhlova, the first of several relationships that would shape his art.
Guernica and the years of war
Early in 1937 the government of the Spanish Republic, then fighting the Spanish Civil War, asked Picasso for a work for its pavilion at the International Exposition in Paris. On 26 April German and Italian aircraft bombed the Basque town of Guernica. Picasso responded with Guernica, finished on 4 June 1937: a vast canvas in black, white and grey, almost 3.5 metres high and nearly 7.8 metres wide (about 11 by 25 feet).
A screaming horse, a bull, a mother holding her dead child and fragments of bodies fill the space under a harsh electric light. After touring Europe and the United States, the painting stayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York for decades, because Picasso wished it to go to Spain only once democracy had returned. It arrived in Madrid in 1981 and has hung in the Museo Reina Sofía since 1992.
- 1881Born in Málaga on 25 October.
- 1895The family moves to Barcelona, where he studies at the school of fine arts.
- 1904Settles in Paris, at the Bateau-Lavoir in Montmartre.
- 1907Paints Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.
- 1912Makes Still Life with Chair Caning, often called the first Cubist collage.
- 1937Paints Guernica for the Spanish Republic’s pavilion in Paris.
- 1963The Museu Picasso opens in Barcelona.
- 1973Dies in Mougins on 8 April, aged 91.
Clay, the Riviera and a vast output
After the Second World War Picasso settled in the south of France. From the late 1940s he worked intensively with ceramics in the pottery town of Vallauris, painting and shaping plates, jugs and vases, many of which were later produced in editions. He lived on the Riviera and in Provence for the rest of his life and died at his home in Mougins on 8 April 1973, aged 91.
Few artists have made so much. There is no exact count, but estimates of his total output run into the tens of thousands of works, including paintings, drawings, prints, ceramics and sculptures. That abundance is one reason Picasso turns up everywhere, from the great museums of modern art to small regional collections.
His private life has become part of how the work is discussed. Several of the women he lived with, among them the photographer and painter Dora Maar and the painter Françoise Gilot, were artists in their own right and appear again and again in his pictures. In recent decades writers, exhibitions and museums have looked more critically at how he treated his partners, and many visitors now hold admiration for the work and questions about the man side by side.
Where to see Picasso
Three major museums are devoted to him. The Museu Picasso in Barcelona, opened in 1963 in medieval palaces on the Carrer Montcada, is especially rich in his early work and holds his 1957 series of variations on Velázquez’s Las Meninas. The Musée national Picasso in Paris, opened in 1985 in the Hôtel Salé in the Marais, was built largely on works that his heirs gave to the French state in lieu of inheritance tax. The Museo Picasso Málaga, opened in 2003 in the Palacio de Buenavista, brings him home to the city of his birth.
Beyond these, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is at MoMA in New York and Guernica at the Reina Sofía in Madrid, and almost every large museum of modern art shows at least a few works. Picasso is lent out often, so check the museum’s own website for what is currently on view.
Terms in this article
- Blue Period
- Picasso’s phase from 1901 to 1904, dominated by cold blue tones and subjects of poverty and loneliness.
- Cubism
- Movement begun around 1908 by Picasso and Braque that breaks objects into geometric planes and shows several viewpoints at once.
- Collage
- A picture made by gluing materials such as paper, cloth or printed matter onto a surface, from the French coller, to glue.
- Papier collé
- French for pasted paper: a collage built mainly from cut and glued paper, developed by Braque and Picasso in 1912.
Readers ask
Why did Guernica stay in New York for so long?
After touring Europe and the United States, the painting was kept at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Picasso wished it to go to Spain only once democracy had been restored after the Franco years. It finally arrived in Madrid in 1981, was first shown at the Casón del Buen Retiro and moved to the Museo Reina Sofía in 1992.
How many works did Picasso make?
Nobody knows exactly. He worked for more than seventy years in many media at once, from painting and drawing to prints, sculpture and ceramics, and many works were made in editions. Published estimates of his total output run into the tens of thousands of works, which is why so many museums around the world own at least one Picasso.
Which Picasso museum should I visit first?
It depends on what interests you. Barcelona is strongest on his youth and early training and also holds the Las Meninas series. Paris has the broadest collection across his whole career, including many works he kept for himself. Málaga is smaller but shows him in the city where he was born. Check each museum’s own website for current exhibitions.
