On October 25, 1881 Maria Picasso Lopez gave birth to a son. Little did she know that that child was an artist. Picasso himself once said “every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up”. So the question is, was Picasso right, was he an artist from birth or did the way in which he lived make him the artist that he became? Pablo Picasso’s father, Jose Ruiz Blasco, was an artist and a teacher at San Telmo school of arts and industrial design in Malaga, Spain where Pablo was born. As a child Picasso would draw amazing pictures without looking at is paper and without lifting his pen.
As a young adult his father’s position in the world of art helped Picasso make progress with his art. With his father’s guidance Picasso was able to make his debut as an artist at age fourteen and was admitted to the La Jonja academy in Barcelona, where his father taught, when he was 16. Picasso became a member of a group of bohemian artists during his years at the academy. In this group he met other young artists who introduced him to current styles of painting. During this time Picasso was excepted to the Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid.
Pablo did not stay at the Royal Academy for long and soon was off in the world working as an artist. He continued to win prizes for his art. Then in 1900 he took his first trip to Paris and returned to Barcelona a year later. Around 1903 Pablo entered his blue period and started signing his paintings simply “Picasso” leaving behind the use of his entire name on his paintings. In 1905 Picasso moved to Paris and ended his blue period. In 1906 Picasso entered what is known as his rose period and began doing his earliest known sculptures and engravings.
In 1909 Picasso began the style known as Cubism with his work Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and created his first clearly Cubist landscape in 1911. In 1918 Picasso married Olga Koklova and moved to Rue La Boetie in Paris and when his son, Paul, was born Picasso created many mother-son paintings. However, the marriage was a shaky one and in 1935 Picasso and Olga separate for the last time. Around this time Picasso has a daughter with a women named Marie-Therese Walter who had become a regular model in his works.
In 1947 nearly ten years after the outbreak of WWII and eight ears after the death of his mother Picasso’s second son, Claude, was born and only two years later Paloma was born. Picasso continued to work up until his death in 1973 at the age of 92. For his eighty-fifth birthday he was commemorated with three simultaneous exhibitions in Paris. In the years before he died Pablo created over 500 pieces, completing 347 etchings created in and eight month period. He also showed 140 of his canvases at the Palace of the Popes in Avignon before donating 2,000 of his early oil paintings and drawings to the Picasso museum.
A final commemoration and one of the highest honors ever bestowed upon a living artist came as celebration for his 90th birthday. Picasso’s works were exhibited in the Grande Galerie of the Louvre. Pablo died in his Villa in Mougins. Many of Picasso’s paintings are recongnisable even to those of us unfimliar with many specific artists. But no painting style is more connected to an artist than Cubism is to Pablo Picasso, although, Picasso’s style went through many transformations. He began creating art as a young boy sketching and painting
