Pablo Picasso 1881 – 1973

Biography

Pablo Picasso was the single most influential artist of the 20th century — a Spanish painter and sculptor who spent most of his adult life in France and never stopped reinventing what art could be. Born in Málaga on October 25, 1881, and trained by his painter father from age seven, he moved through the sombre Blue Period and the lighter Rose Period before shattering perspective itself: with Georges Braque he co-founded Cubism, and his proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) redrew the map of modern art. His anti-war masterpiece Guernica (1937), painted after the bombing of the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War, remains one of the most powerful political paintings ever made. Across a career spanning more than 76 years he also pioneered collage and constructed sculpture, working in paint, bronze, and ceramics. He died on April 8, 1973, at the age of 91, and rests at the Château of Vauvenargues in France.