PABLO PICASSO

Early Years

Pablo Picasso was born in 1881 in Málaga. His father—the artist Don José Ruiz y Blasco—taught him to paint and draw, and his artistic talent was recognised at a young age. He studied at the Barcelona School of Fine Arts and then the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid. However, young Picasso preferred to spend time in the Prado Museum looking at works by Diego Velázquez, El Greco and Francisco Goya.

Pablo Picasso: Artworks

Pablo Picasso was always innovating, adopting new materials and techniques and working across mediums including oil paint, drawing, collage, ceramics, set design, printing and sculpture. Alongside Georges Braque, Picasso is seen as one of the inventors of Cubism.

• Picasso’s Blue Period (1901–1904) saw the artist using mostly blue and blue-green paint to depict sombre subject matter including prostitutes and beggars. It has been claimed that the Blue Period began following the death by suicide of Picasso’s friend Carlos Casagemas. Works from this period include The Old Guitarist (1903–1904), Le Gourmet (The Greedy Child) (1901) and Femme Assise (Melancholy Woman) (1902–1903).
• The Rose Period, between 1904–1906, saw the artist add pink tones to his colour palette and move his subject matter into happier themes, including clowns and carnival performers. Garçon à la Pipe (Boy with a Pipe) (1905) depicts an adolescent with flower garlands around his head and a pipe in his left hand.
• As the first decade of the 1900s progressed, Picasso became increasingly influenced by Iberian and African art. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) used mask-like faces and depicted the women using geometric shapes, laying the groundwork for Cubism. He also began to introduce collage into his works, such as 1912’s Still Life with Chair Caning.
• After the First World War, Picasso produced neoclassical pieces (Peasants Sleeping, 1919, the Vollard Suite etchings (1930–1937)) and also Surrealism-influenced works including 1925’s Three Dancers. A move into more political art is probably best represented by the powerful anti-war mural Guernica (1937).

Select posthumous exhibitions

• The Metamorphoses of Guernica, Musée National Picasso-Paris (2026)
• Late Picasso, Kunsten Museum of Modern Art, Aalborg (2026)
• Theatre Picasso, Tate Modern, London (2025)
• Picasso: Printmaker, British Museum, London (2024)
• Picasso, the Foreigner, Palazzo Reale, Milan (2024)
• Picasso: Seven Decades of Drawing, Acquavella Galleries, New York City (2021)
• Picasso 1932, Tate Modern, London (2018)
• Picasso: The Mediterranean Years (1945–1962), Gagosian, London (2010)
• Picasso and the Masters, Grand Palais, Paris (2008)
• Matisse Picasso, MoMA, New York City (2003)
• Pablo Picasso: Retrospective, Art Focus Galerie, Zurich (2000)
• Picasso and the Age of Iron, Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York City (1993)
• Picasso. Portraits of Jacqueline, Fundación Juan March, Madrid (1991)
• Je Suis Le Cahier: The Sketchbooks of Picasso, Art Institute of Chicago (1987)
• Museum Collection: Mirò and Picasso, MoMA, New York City (1983)
• Picasso: Oeuvres reçues en paiement des droits de succession (Works received in payment of inheritance taxes), Grand Palais, Paris (1979)
• Salut à Picasso, Jacques Damase Gallery, Brussels (1975)

Select Exhibitions for Celebration Picasso 1973–2023

• Picasso in Fontainebleau, MoMA, New York City (2023)
• Picasso Celebration: The Collection in a New Light, Musée Picasso Paris (2023)
• Picasso Sculptor. Matter and Body, Museo Picasso Malagà and Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2023)
• Picasso’s Wish. The Ceramics That Inspired the Artist, Museo del Disseny de Barcelona (2023)
• Fernande and Françoise, Kunstmuseum Pablo Picasso Münster (2022)

Further Reading

• Artist profile page at Ludorff
• Unofficial Pablo Picasso website
• National Museum Picasso-Paris
• Museu Picasso Barcelona

Pablo Picasso FAQs

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