Pablo Picasso was born in 1881 in Málaga, the son of the painter Don José Ruiz Blasco and Doña María Picasso y López. He passed away in Mougins in 1973.
In 1899, he met Carlos Casagemas, with whom he would live in Barcelona, and in 1900 they settled in Paris. In 1901, Casagemas committed suicide, and Picasso painted works depicting his friend, initiating the so-called “Blue Period” (1901-1905), characterized by an almost monochromatic palette and themes featuring circus performers and social outcasts. He moved into the “Bateau-Lavoir” in 1904, marking the beginning of the “Rose Period” (1905-1907), during which he used brighter colors. In 1907, he painted the landmark work “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,” the first Cubist painting, influenced by the teachings of Cézanne and his visit to the Ethnographic Museum of Paris. In 1910, he created his first Cubist sculpture, “Head of a Woman.”Following his introduction to the Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev in 1916 in Paris, he began working on set designs and costumes. Concurrently, he created sculptures and illustrated books for his friends.
In the mid-1910s, he began painting in a neoclassical style dominated by strong outlines and clarity of forms. In the following decade, he opened a dialogue with the Surrealist movement. In 1928, he created the collage “Minotaur,” a theme that would preoccupy him throughout his life, and met the Spanish sculptor Julio González (1876-1942), from whom he learned the technique of metal sculpture.
With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Picasso stood by the Republicans and against Franco, producing the etchings “The Dream and Lie of Franco” in 1937. Commissioned by the Republican Government for the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris International Exposition of 1937, he created “Guernica,” inspired by the destruction caused by the German air force bombing of the eponymous Basque town on April 26.
In 1946, at the workshop of the Mourlot brothers in Paris, he practiced the technique of lithography. In 1947, he learned the technique of ceramics at the workshop of Georges Ramié, which he soon developed in new directions. He began a series of assemblages, combining mismatched elements to create original sculptural motifs. In the 1950s, he initiated a dialogue with significant works of the past, starting with variations on works by Gustave Courbet, El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos), Delacroix, and Diego Velázquez. In 1968, he worked in Mougins, creating 347 etchings, known as “Suite 347,” which traveled to many countries.