Pablo Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso[a][b] (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture,[8][9] the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) and the anti-war painting Guernica (1937), a dramatic portrayal of the bombing of Guernica by German and Italian air forces during the Spanish Civil War.
"Picasso" redirects here. For other uses, see Picasso (disambiguation).
Pablo Picasso
8 April 1973 (aged 91)
1897–1973
- La Vie (1903)
- Family of Saltimbanques (1905)
- Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907)
- Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (1910)
- Three Musicians (1921)
- Girl before a Mirror (1932)
- Le Rêve (1932)
- Guernica (1937)
- The Weeping Woman (1937)
- Massacre in Korea (1951)
- Fernande Olivier (1905–1912)
- Eva Gouel (1912–1915)
- Gabrielle Depeyre (1915–1916)
- Irène Lagut (1916–1917)
- Marie-Thérèse Walter (1927–1935)
- Dora Maar (1935–1943)
- Françoise Gilot (1943–1953)
- Paulo Picasso
- Maya Widmaier-Picasso
- Claude Picasso
- Paloma Picasso
- José Ruiz y Blasco (father)
- Marina Picasso (granddaughter)
- Bernard Ruiz-Picasso (grandson)
Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years, painting in a naturalistic manner through his childhood and adolescence. During the first decade of the 20th century, his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas. After 1906, the Fauvist work of the older artist Henri Matisse motivated Picasso to explore more radical styles, beginning a fruitful rivalry between the two artists, who subsequently were often paired by critics as the leaders of modern art.[10][11][12][13]
Picasso's output, especially in his early career, is often periodized. 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 (1904–1906), the African-influenced Period (1907–1909), Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), and Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919), also referred to as the Crystal period. Much of Picasso's work of the late 1910s and early 1920s is in a neoclassical style, and his work in the mid-1920s often has characteristics of Surrealism. His later work often combines elements of his earlier styles.
Exceptionally prolific throughout the course of his long life, Picasso achieved universal renown and immense fortune for his revolutionary artistic accomplishments, and became one of the best-known figures in 20th-century art.
1909, Femme assise (Sitzende Frau), oil on canvas, 100 × 80 cm (39 × 31 in), Staatliche Museen, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin
1909–10, Figure dans un Fauteuil (Seated Nude, Femme nue assise), oil on canvas, 92.1 × 73 cm (36 × 28 in), Tate Modern, London. This painting from the collection of Wilhelm Uhde was confiscated by the French state and sold at the Hôtel Drouot in 1921.
1910, Woman with Mustard Pot (La Femme au pot de moutarde), oil on canvas, 73 × 60 cm (28 × 23 in), Gemeentemuseum, The Hague. Exhibited at the Armory Show, New York, Chicago, Boston 1913
1910, Girl with a Mandolin (Fanny Tellier), oil on canvas, 100.3 × 73.6 cm (39 × 28 in), Museum of Modern Art, New York
1910, Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, The Art Institute of Chicago. Picasso wrote of Kahnweiler "What would have become of us if Kahnweiler hadn't had a business sense?"
1910–11, Guitariste, La mandoliniste (Woman playing guitar or mandolin), oil on canvas
1911, Still Life with a Bottle of Rum, oil on canvas, 61.3 × 50.5 cm (24 × 19 in), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
1911, The Poet (Le poète), oil on linen, 131.2 × 89.5 cm (51 5/8 × 35 1/4 in), The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
1911–12, Violon (Violin), oil on canvas, 100 × 73 cm (39 × 28 in) (oval), Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands. This painting from the collection of Wilhelm Uhde was confiscated by the French state and sold at the Hôtel Drouot in 1921.
1913, Bouteille, clarinet, violon, journal, verre, 55 × 45 cm (21 × 17 in). This painting from the collection of Wilhelm Uhde was confiscated by the French state and sold at the Hôtel Drouot in 1921.
1913, Femme assise dans un fauteuil (Eva), Woman in a Chemise in an Armchair, oil on canvas, 149.9 × 99.4 cm (59 × 39 in), Leonard A. Lauder Cubist Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art
1913–14, Head (Tête), cut and pasted coloured paper, gouache and charcoal on paperboard, 43.5 × 33 cm (17 × 12.9 in), Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh
1913–14, L'Homme aux cartes (Card Player), oil on canvas, 108 × 89.5 cm (42 × 35 in), Museum of Modern Art, New York
1914–15, Nature morte au compotier (Still Life with Compote and Glass), oil on canvas, 63.5 × 78.7 cm (25 × 31 in), Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio
1916, L'anis del mono (Bottle of Anis del Mono), oil on canvas, 46 × 54.6 cm (18 × 21 in), Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan
Parade, 1917, curtain designed for the ballet Parade. The work is the largest of Picasso's paintings. Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, France, May 2012
Death
Pablo Picasso died on 8 April 1973 in Mougins, France, from pulmonary edema and a heart attack, the morning after he and his wife Jacqueline entertained friends for dinner. He was interred at the Château of Vauvenargues near Aix-en-Provence, a property he had acquired in 1958 and occupied with Jacqueline between 1959 and 1962. Jacqueline prevented his children Claude and Paloma from attending the funeral.[78] Devastated and lonely after the death of Picasso, Jacqueline killed herself by gunshot in 1986 when she was 59 years old.[79]
From early adolescence, Picasso maintained both superficial and intense amatory and sexual relationships. Biographer John Richardson stated that 'work, sex and tobacco' were his addictions.[133] Picasso was married twice and had four children by three women:
Photographer and painter Dora Maar was 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.[134]
The women in Picasso's life played an important role in the emotional and erotic aspects of his creative expression, and the tumultuous nature of these relationships has been considered vital to his artistic process. Many of these women functioned as muses for him, and their inclusion in his extensive oeuvre granted them a place in art history.[135] A largely recurring motif in his body of work is the female form. The variations in his relationships informed and collided with his progression of style throughout his career. For example, portraits created of his first wife, Olga, were rendered in a naturalistic style during his Neoclassical period. His relationship with Marie-Thérèse Walter inspired many of his surrealist pieces, as well as what is referred to as his "Year of Wonders".[136] Reappearance of acrobats theme in 1905 put an end to his "Blue Period" and transitioned into his "Rose Period". This transition has been incorrectly attributed to the presence of Fernande Olivier in his life.[137]
Picasso has been characterised as a womaniser and a misogynist, being quoted as saying to long-time partner Françoise Gilot that "women are machines for suffering."[138] He later allegedly told her, "For me there are only two kinds of women: goddesses and doormats."[139] In her memoir, Picasso, My Grandfather, Marina Picasso writes of his treatment of women, "He submitted them to his animal sexuality, tamed them, bewitched them, ingested them, and crushed them onto his canvas. After he had spent many nights extracting their essence, once they were bled dry, he would dispose of them."[140]
Of the several important women in his life, two – lover Marie-Thèrése Walter and his second wife Jacqueline Roque – died by suicide. Others, notably his first wife Olga Khokhlova and lover Dora Maar, succumbed to nervous breakdowns. His son, Paulo, developed a fatal alcoholism due to depression. His grandson, Pablito, also died by suicide that same year by ingesting bleach when he was barred by Jacqueline Roque from attending the artist's funeral.[138]
Picasso entrusted Christian Zervos to constitute the catalogue raisonné of his work (painted and drawn). The first volume of the catalogue, Works from 1895 to 1906, published in 1932, entailed the financial ruin of Zervos, self-publishing under the name Cahiers d'art, forcing him to sell part of his art collection at auction to avoid bankruptcy.[141][142]
From 1932 to 1978, Zervos constituted the catalogue raisonné of the complete works of Picasso in the company of the artist who had become one of his friends in 1924. Following the death of Zervos, Mila Gagarin supervised the publication of 11 additional volumes from 1970 to 1978.[143]
The 33 volumes cover the entire work from 1895 to 1972, with close to 16,000 black and white photographs, in accord with the will of the artist.[144]
Further publications by Zervos