By: Phylicia Appling
Name: Pablo Picasso
Born: October 25 1881, Malaga, Spain
Died: April 8 1973, Mougins, France
Father: José Ruiz Blasco (1838 - 1913)
Mother: Maria Picasso Y Lopez (1855 - 1939)
Early Years
• Pablo Picasso started to paint when he was
eight years old.
• From the age of five on, Pablo would get
drawing lessons at school, in Malaga.
• As Picasso's father was an art teacher, he
would take full control of Pablo's education
in art.
• As such, Picasso's father was ubiquitous in
Pablo's life, both at home and in school.
Family
• Pablo Picasso's father, Don José, descended from
an old, wealthy family from the province Léon
(North-West of Spain).
• His mother, Doña Maria was from Andalusia and
of Arabic descent.
• Pablo had two younger sisters: Dolorès, or Lola
(1884 - 1958) and Concepción (1887 - 1891),
called Conchita, who died at the age of four.
• In 1895 his father was appointed at the art
academy La Lonja in Barcelona.
• Picasso's father rented him a studio in
Barcelona.
• With the financial aid of his uncles, Pablo
went to study in Madrid at the end of 1897.
• Because Madrid had nothing new to offer him,
he decided to quit mid-1898.
• In October 1900, at the age of 19, Pablo
Picasso moved to Paris, in the company of
Carlos Casagemas.
• Remarkably, in his first two major
paintings, The First Communion (1896) and
Science and Charity (1897), Pablo includes
the (rather uninspired) portrait of his father.
• As an artist, Pablo's father specialized in
painting animals, the least valued genre in
his time. The most valued genres were
history pieces, as well as portraitism.
• In 1891 Picasso's father got a new job at the
art school Instituto da Guarda in La Coruna,
to where the family moved.
• Pablo would begin to sign his artworks with
Pablo Ruiz (after his father), but from 1900
on he would use his mother's last name:
Picasso.
• As the myth goes, Don José was so
impressed with the ability of the young
Pablo that in 1894 he gave his palette and
brushes to Pablo and would never paint
again.
• Picasso's relationship with his parents
became strained when he quit his studies.
Picasso’s Period Styles
Young Picasso
(1881 – 1901)
Rose Period
(1904 - 1906)
Blue Period
(1901 - 1904)
African Period
(1906 - 1907)
Cubism
(1907 - 1915)
Young Picasso
Picasso's first painting at age 8, Picador (1889).
The first communion
1896 Realistic
Oil on canvas
• The painting depicts
Pablo Picasso's sister,
Lola, at her first
communion.
• "The First
Communion" was
Picasso's entry into
the official artistic
world. He presented
it at the Third
Exhibition of Fine
Arts and Artistic
Industries in 1896.
Blue Period
• Pablo Picasso's Blue Period refers to a series of
paintings in which the color blue dominates and
which he painted between 1901 and 1904.
• The blue period is a marvelous expression of
poetic subtlety and personal melancholy and
contributes to the transition of Picasso's style from
classicism to abstract art.
• Picasso was an accomplished classicist painter, but
like many young artists of his time, he was
dissatisfied with the dogmas of traditional art.
• Pablo Picasso is generally associated with
cubism and related styles which are
predominantly abstract. It is therefore
essential to realize that at the time of
Picasso's blue period, abstract art as we
know it today didn't yet exist.
• Picasso and his contemporaries were
experiencing the after-shock of an artistic
eruption called Vincent Van Gogh, which
hurdled an astonished art world into the
20th century and towards abstract art.
The Color Blue
• Some people believe that, by nature, man
associates colors with emotions, the color
blue being associated with melancholy.
• In Christian iconography blue represents the
divine and in a rather more secular sense it
stands for the super-natural as well as the
erotic.
• Although Picasso's blue period melancholy
was sincere, the people he painted have an
element of pathos and melodrama.
• When Picasso's close friend Carlos
Casagemas commits suicide at the age of 19,
Picasso's trauma finds expression in a series
of deeply sentimental paintings which
comprise his blue period.
• Picasso's early days in Paris are characterized
by poverty, which contributed to the
melancholy of his blue period paintings, but
it's certain that the sadness of his blue period
paintings alienated potential buyers of his art
work and thus, contributed to his poverty.
• Death of Casagemas 1901 Oil on canvas
• Impressionalism; Blue Period
• Picasso spent most of his time in Barcelona,
until he moved to Paris definitively.
• Picasso blue period has an atmosphere of
resignation and silent mourning.
• Picasso's depression didn't end with the
beginning of his rose period, which
succeeded the blue period and in which the
color pink dominates in many of his
paintings.
“Le Gourmet” 1901
Impressionalism; Blue Period
“The Tragedy” 1903
Impressionalism; Blue Period
“Couple in Café” 1903
“Girl in Chemise” 1905
Impressionalism; Blue Period
The Rose Period
• During his Rose Period, Pablo Picasso
would, for the first time in his career,
develop stylistic means that would become
part of his Picasso Style, which made him
the most important artist of the 20th
century.
• 1904 is a transitional year and belongs
neither truly to the blue period, nor to the
rose period.
Rose Period
• In 1905-06, Picasso's palette began to
lighten considerably, bringing in a
distinctive beige or "rose" tone. The subject
matter also is less depressing. Here are the
first appearances by the circus performers
and clowns that will populate Picasso's
paintings at various stages through the rest
of his long career.
Impressionalism; Rose Period: oil on canvas
Acrobat with young harlequin 1905
Family of acrobats, with monkey 1905
• Pablo Picasso was a creature of the 19th
century. Although he spent most of his life
in the 20th century, his work and thinking
would remain a product of 19th century
romanticism.
• Picasso explored how to combine
expressionism with classicism, a process for
which he laid the basis in his Rose Period.
• A major commercial breakthrough for
Picasso occurred when Clovis Savigot, a
former circus clown who had started an art
gallery in Paris, began to feature Picasso's
work, possibly attracted by Picasso's
paintings of circus artists.
• Through Savigot's gallery, Picasso came in
contact with Leo and Gertrude Stein, who
would become important collectors of
avant-garde art.
The Acrobats 1905
Impressionalism; Rose Period: oil on canvas
Circus Family (the tumblers) 1905
Impressionalism; Rose Period: oil on canvas
Woman with crow 1904
Impressionalism; Rose Period: oil on canvas
• From his Rose Period
on, Picasso would
continue to produce
figurative art
occasionally, but it
would never again be
his main style.
Impressionalism; Rose Period: oil on canvas
• From May 2004
until June 2006
the most
expensive
painting in the
world was
"Boy with pipe"
(1905)
$104,000,000.
Boy with pipe 1905
African Period
• Picasso's African Period, which lasted from
1906 to 1909, was the period when Pablo
Picasso painted in a style which was strongly
influenced by African sculpture.
• This period, which followed his Blue Period
and Rose Period, has also occasionally been
called the Black Period.
• In May or June 1907, Picasso experienced a
"revelation" while viewing African art at the
ethnographic museum at Palais du Trocadéro.
African Period
Head of a Woman, Figure, Standing Nude, Nude, Standing Man
1907
• Picasso's discovery of African art influenced
the style of his painting Les Demoiselles
d'Avignon.
• Although Les Demoiselles is seen as the
first Cubist work, Picasso continued to
develop a style derived from African art
before beginning the Analytic Cubism
phase.
• After painting Les Demoiselles
d'Avignon, Picasso began
painting in a style influenced by
the two figures on the right side
of the painting, which were
based on African art..
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon 1907
Cubism; Cubism Period: oil on canvas
Cubism Period
• To understand where the term cubism comes
from, we have to digress on the rivalry that
existed between Picasso and Matisse.
• Matisse had a huge following after painting
Blue Nude which caused a scandal among the
art world.
• When Picasso produced his Demoiselles,
many young artists that had previously
followed Matisse, began to follow Picasso &
his radical new style of painting.
• One of the converts was Georges
Braque.
• When Braque submitted a series of
paintings to the Salon (an annual Paris
art show of contemporary French art),
Matisse, was instrumental in the
Salon's rejection of all of Braques'
works.
• When explaining, Matisse,
made a drawing after one of
Braque's landscapes, to show
how they were made out of
'little cubes' and from there on
"cubism" was a no-brainer.
• With Les Demoiselles d'Avignon Picasso
reached a level of abstraction that was a
radical enough break with the classical
dominance of content over form. A
hierarchy is reversed in Les Demoiselles
d'Avignon and the style which followed
from it is Cubism.
• It is important to fully realize
the importance of cubism. It
isn't just "Picasso's style" but
marks the real beginning of
abstract art.
Cubism; Cubism Period: oil on canvas
• Friendship
1907
• Queen Isabela
1908
Cubism; Cubism Period: oil on canvas
“Landscape with two figures” 1908
Portrait of
Ambroise Vollard
1910
Cubism;
Cubism Period:
oil on canvas
Three Musicians 1921
Cubism; Cubism Period: oil on canvas
War, Art & Guernica
• By the late '30s, Picasso was the
most famous artist in the world. He
was called upon to depict the
brutality of fascist aggression in
the Spanish Civil War with his
monumental "Guernica".
• "Guernica", filling an entire wall, is surely
the best-known 20th-century work of art. It
relates to a specific historical event, and
expresses Picasso's political commitment.
For this reason, art and politics, the creative
hallmarks of the work and its historical
circumstances, must be treated as
inseparable.
• The horizontal-format composition
uses seven figures, or figure
groups; it is clearly yet subtly
divided up.
• Though it is readily taken in as a
whole, "Guernica" is nonetheless
a work of multi-layered
complexity.
• From the start on May 1st to the
completion on June 4th , Picasso
took just five weeks.
• Many other paintings from this
period reflect the horror of war.
Guernica 1937
Cubism, oil on canvas
Portrait of
Jacqueline
Roque with
Flowers
1954
Cubism, oil on canvas
Jacqueline in the Studio 1956
Cubism, oil on canvas
Las Meninas
•From 17 August to 30 December 1957,
Picasso did a series of 58 very different largescale oils related to "Las Meninas", painted by
the Spanish artist Diego Velazquez in 1656.
•The Louvre invited him, shortly after the
Second World War, to hang his own work
alongside the original, for a single day, in order
to establish the stature of his art through the
comparison.
Las Meninas 1957
Cubism, oil on canvas (influenced by Velazquez’s art)
Picasso’s Late Works
• In the last two decades of his long career,
Picasso produced more work than at any
other time of his life. During this period,
some works are not only dated by month
and day, but with a numeral (I, II, III, etc.)
indicating multiple works created that single
day!
• This late period tends to be overlooked, but
contains some of the finest of Picasso's
paintings.
• Some critics maintain Picasso was
creatively lazy at this point, but a close look
at the work is very rewarding.
• He had achieved a level of effortless artistic
expression that has still not been fully
appreciated after more than 25 years.
Cubism, oil on canvas
Man Writing
1971
Man with guitar
1972
Self-Portrait 1972
Cubism, oil on canvas
Regardless of
your position
on Picasso's
personal &
artistic life, each
of us should, in
view of our own
mortality, be
awed by his final
self-portrait.
• Throughout Picasso's lifetime, his work was
exhibited on countless occasions. Most
unusual, however, was the 1971 exhibition
at the Louvre, in Paris, honoring him on his
90th birthday; until then, living artists had
not been shown there. In 1980 a major
retrospective showing of his work was held
at the Museum of Modern Art in New York
City.
Picasso died in his villa Notre-Dame-de-Vie
near Mougins on April 8, 1973
http://www.biography.com/p
eople/pablo-picasso-9440021
Bibliography
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1994 and Encarta
1999.
• The Museum of Modern Art. Pablo Picasso, a
retrospective. Ed. William Rubin, chronology by
Jane Fluegel. New York. 1980. ISBN 0-87070519-9
• Mallen, Enrique. The Visual Grammar of Pablo
Picasso. Berkeley Insights in Linguistics &
Semiotics Series. Berlin: Peter Lang. 2003.