Pablo Picasso

Pablo Ruiz Picasso (October 25, 1881 – April 8, 1973) was a Spanish painter and sculptor. His full name is Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Crispín Crispiniano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso. 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.

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Career

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Early life

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

Pablo Picasso was born in Málaga, Spain, the first child of José Ruiz y Blasco and María Picasso y López. He was christened with the names Pablo, Diego, José, Francisco de Paula, Juan Nepomuceno, Maria de los Remedios, and Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad.[1]

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.[2] 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.

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Personal life

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

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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 is shit and whoever likes it should be in an insane assylum

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Legacy

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

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Awards

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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 color but only shades of gray?" [1]

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

Picasso suffered from dyslexia. [2]

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Children

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Lists of works

L'Accordéoniste, a 1911 cubist painting by Picasso.
L'Accordéoniste, a 1911 cubist painting by Picasso.
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References

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Notes

  1. ↑ O'Brian, Patrick (1994). Picasso: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton, 14. ISBN 0-393-31107-4.
  2. ↑ Hughes, Robert. "Anatomy of a Minotaur", Time Magazine, 1971-11-01. Retrieved on 2006-09-01.
  3. ↑ Picasso portrait sells for $95.2 million. Retrieved on May 4, 2006.
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Sources

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See also

List of most expensive paintings

Picasso museums

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External links

Museums:

Online galleries:

Essays:

Persondata
NAME Picasso, Pablo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pablo Ruiz y Picasso
SHORT DESCRIPTION Spanish painter and sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH October 25, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Málaga, Spain
DATE OF DEATH April 8, 1973
PLACE OF DEATH Mougins, France
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