Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso is one of the central touchstones of twentieth century art. Not only was he at the forefront of artistic movements, but his work inspired new approaches to all of the other arts. Born in 1881 as Pablo Ruiz, his father was an art teacher. Late in his teens, he adopted his mother’s maiden name for his artistic identity. Amazingly enough, Picasso entered the Royal Academy of Art’s advanced class when he was only fourteen years old. No matter where his art took him, Picasso remained an exceptional craftsman of drawing and painting. In 1904, he left Spain for good to move to Paris. There he quickly became part of a circle of friends who would, in their own rights, become influential in the new arts of the twentieth century. Picasso’s work is characterized by different periods, such as the Blue (heavy blue color, focusing on people and poverty), Rose (lighter colors, circus themes such as acrobats, clowns), Cubism, and Surrealism. In 1907, he completed Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Although this painting would not be publicly exhibited until 1937, it became the calling card of Cubism, a movement that would dominate the art of the first quarter of the century. Gertrude Stein, one of his close friends, tried to replicate the cubist approach in literature. Breaking down a subject for multiple, and at the same time simultaneous, viewpoints still has a legacy in our arts today. Picasso’s Guernica of 1937 was a response to the destruction of a Spanish town during the Spanish Civil War; Picasso would never return to Spain while it was under Franco’s rule. Perhaps there is no more famous anti-war artistic statement than this painting. Bertolt Brecht used an image from the painting for one of the central moments in his play, Mother Courage. Picasso had a relationship with the theatre most of his life, designing sets for Jean Cocteau, and the Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev, amongst others. Painter, sculptor, designer, printmaker, ceramicist, Picasso had one of the longest careers in art. At the age of 91, he was still creating works that are considered masterpieces. He died in 1973. He once said, “art is a lie which shows us the truth.”
