Pablo Ruiz y Picasso, Pablo Picasso (Málaga, 1881 – Mougins, 1973) — painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and more — was arguably one of the most prominent and influential figures in the art world of the 20th century.
From an early age, Picasso showed remarkable artistic talent. He began painting under the guidance of his father, Don José, a painter himself, who encouraged him to study the works of the great masters. The family moved from Málaga to A Coruña, where young Pablo began attending the local School of Fine Arts. In 1895, they relocated again—this time to Barcelona, a city pulsating with a new modernist spirit at the turn of the century. Just a year later, Picasso opened his first studio in Barcelona, producing early works such as L’enfant de chœur (1896), First Communion (1895–96), and Science and Charity (1897).
Picasso’s artistic journey continued independently in Madrid, where he was admitted to the Royal Academy of San Fernando. There, he spent long hours at the Prado Museum, captivated by the works of Velázquez, El Greco, Zurbarán, and Goya. Meanwhile, Picasso developed a strong desire to visit Paris, which he did shortly after the 1900 Universal Exposition, where he had exhibited a work in the Spanish Pavilion. In Paris, the visits to the Louvre and retrospectives on Delacroix, Courbet, and Ingres had a profound impact on him, as did the vibrant nightlife of the city’s cabarets. However, returning to Barcelona proved to be difficult, and even another stay in Madrid in 1901 did not bring the relief he sought. The sudden suicide of his close friend Carlos Casagemas deeply affected him and led to what is known as the Blue Period (1901–1904). Characterized by melancholic and introspective themes, this phase reflected the artist’s inner turmoil and sadness, as seen in works such as The Two Sisters (1902), The Old Guitarist (1903), and Mother with Sick Child (1903).
Soon after, Picasso returned to Paris. Though initially met with indifference at his 1901 exhibition of 64 works at Ambroise Vollard’s gallery, his fortunes began to change. In 1904, he settled in Montmartre, where he shared a studio and spent his evenings among a lively community of artists and performers. This more cheerful environment gave rise to the Rose Period (1904–1906), marked by a lighter color palette and subjects drawn from the world of the circus—acrobats, dancers, clowns, and jugglers—hovering between fantasy and reality.
In the summer of 1906, Picasso visited the small mountain village of Gósol in the Pyrenees, where he encountered the Iberian pre-Romanesque sculpture. These works, which disregarded traditional rules of proportion and perspective, deeply influenced him. It was during this period that Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) began to take shape, ushering in the groundbreaking era of Cubism. Though now considered a masterpiece, the painting was initially met with skepticism. Around this time, Picasso began his collaboration with Georges Braque, leading to the development of fully cubist works such as La Femme Assise (1909), Girl with a Mandolin (1910), Portrait of Georges Braque (1909), and Portrait of Ambroise Vollard (1909–10). Together, they later evolved toward Synthetic Cubism, characterized by softer forms and the introduction of collage and papier collé.
At the outbreak of World War I, Picasso remained in France, avoiding conscription due to his Spanish citizenship. During this time, he met Jean Cocteau, who invited him to design sets, costumes, and curtains for the ballet Parade, produced by Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. In 1917, the two traveled to Rome with the production, where Picasso encountered Italian Futurists and immersed himself in classical and Renaissance art, including Pompeian frescoes. These influences ushered in a Neoclassical Period in the early 1920s, characterized by compositional harmony and monumental forms.
In the 1930s, despite his work being labeled “degenerate” by the Nazi regime, Picasso continued to exhibit internationally, with shows in New York, Paris, England, and Spain. Between 1934 and 1936, he returned to Spain, witnessing the tensions that would soon erupt into civil war. In 1937, he published Sueños y mentiras de Franco (Dreams and Lies of Franco), a scathing critique of the military uprising led by Francisco Franco. That same year, Picasso was commissioned to create a large painting for the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris International Exposition. The result was Guernica, inspired by the bombing of the Basque town of the same name—an enduring and iconic condemnation of war.
Picasso also remained in France during World War II, though his work could not be shown publicly. After the war, he moved to Antibes in 1945 and created optimistic, vibrant pieces such as Pastorale (1946). He soon settled in Vallauris, where he began working in ceramics at Suzanne Ramié’s studio.
In 1944, Picasso joined the French Communist Party. In his later years, he often revisited the Western artistic tradition through reinterpretations of major works. He created series inspired by Las Meninas (after Velázquez) in 1957, Les Femmes d’Alger (after Delacroix) in 1954-55, and works by Cranach, Poussin, Rembrandt, David, Courbet, and Manet.
Picasso’s life is often seen through a mythic lens — one that he himself, perhaps with some narcissism, helped cultivate. It’s said that he vowed never to return to Spain while Franco remained in power, a promise he kept. Franco’s regime fell in 1975; Picasso had died two years earlier, in 1973, in Mougins, France.
Roughly a decade before his death, the Picasso Museum was inaugurated in Barcelona, housing many works donated by the artist himself. Forty years later, another major Picasso Museum opened in his hometown of Málaga, honoring one of the most extraordinary and prolific artists in modern history.
