Pablo Picasso
Spain 1881 - France 1973

Pablo Picasso was almost certainly the most famous artist of the 20th century. During his artistic career, which lasted more than 75 years, he created thousands of works, not only paintings but also sculptures, prints, and ceramics, using all kinds of materials.

First famous for his pioneering role in Cubism, Picasso continued to develop his art with a pace and vitality comparable to the accelerated technological and cultural changes of the century whose art he dominated. Each change embodied a radical new idea, and it might be said that Picasso lived several artistic lifetimes.

Picasso was born on October 25, 1881, in Malaga, Spain, the son of an artist, Jose Ruiz, and Maria Picasso. Rather than adopt the common name Ruiz, the young Picasso preferred to use the rarer name of his mother. An artistic prodigy, at the age of 14 he completed the one-month qualifying examination of the Academy of Fine Arts in Barcelona in just one day. From there he went to the Academy of San Fernando in Madrid, returning in 1900 to Barcelona, where he frequented the city's famous cabaret of intellectuals and artists, Els Quatre Gats.

In late April, 1937, the world learned the shocking news of the saturation bombing of the civilian target of Guernica, Spain, by the Nazi Luftwaffe. Picasso responded with his great anti-war painting, Guernica. During World War II, Picasso lived in Paris, where he turned his energy to the art of ceramics. From 1947 to 1950, he pursued new methods of lithography. Pablo Picasso died on April 8, 1973, in Mougins, France, at the age of 91.