Pablo
Picasso (full name: Pablo Ruiz y Picasso) was born on 25th October 1881 in the
city of Malaga in Spain. He was a Spanish painter, sculptor, ceramicist, stage
designer and printmaker. He has been regarded as the most influential artists
of the modern 20th century. Pablo Picasso is known for the invention of
constructed sculpture, co-invention of collage and the Cubist movement. One of
his proclaimed works “Guernica” in 1937 is a portrayal of the German bombing of
Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.
Childhood
He
was born to father Don José Ruiz y Blasco and mother María Picasso y López. Don
José was a painter by profession and for most of his life was a professor of
art at the School of Crafts. Picasso showed a passion and a skill for drawing
from an early age. From the age of seven, Picasso received formal artistic
training from his father in figure drawing and oil painting.
Education
In
1895, the family moved to Barcelona where Ruiz became a faculty at School of
Fine Arts. He made Pablo took the admission and start his school training.
Later he went to Madrid's Royal Academy of San Fernando, the country's foremost
art school where he got interested in the ‘Prado’ housed paintings by Diego
Velázquez, Francisco Goya, and Francisco Zurbarán.
Career
Picasso's
training under his father began before 1890. Most of his work is collected at
the Museu Picasso in Barcelona. His juvenile work of mid-1980s is well
displayed in The First Communion (1896), a large composition that depicts his
sister, Lola.
Picasso
made his first trip to Paris (the art Capital of Europe) in 1900 and from here
he began the era of ‘Modern Art’. He
started with “Blue Period” (1901-1904) where he used shades of blue and
blue-green to characterize the somber period. Then came “Rose Period”
(1904-1906) which was characterized by a more cheery style with orange and pink
colors. From 1907-1909 Picasso brought “African-influenced Period” where his
paintings were themed around two figures. Later followed the “Cubism” period
(1909-1912) in which the work is based on the shapes of the objects using
monochrome brownish and neutral colors.
At
the End
In
the 1940s Picasso started working on sculptor making. His final works were a
mixture of styles, and from 1968 to 1971 he produced hundreds of paintings and
copperplate etchings sculptors. His work is now termed as “Modern Art”. Pablo
Picasso died on 8th April 1973 in Mougins, France.
