Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)

Pablo Picasso was born in 1881 in a small town in southern Spain. His father, a painter, also served as the director of the local art museum and as an art teacher. Picasso began painting at the age of seven and could faithfully reproduce whatever he saw. Proud of his son’s precocious talent, Picasso later recalled: “My father handed me his brushes and paints and never painted again.”

At nineteen, Picasso set off for Paris with his close friend, the painter Carles Casagemas. The Louvre became his school by day, while the cafés of Paris by night served as his meeting place with fellow painters, musicians, writers, and poets. Immersed in this vibrant cultural milieu, he discovered an inexhaustible source of inspiration and resolved to make Paris his permanent home.

Picasso passed away on April 8, 1973, at the age of ninety-two. Over the course of his life, he produced an estimated 45,000 works, including 1,885 paintings, 1,228 sculptures, 7,089 drawings, 30,000 prints, 150 sketchbooks, and 3,222 ceramic pieces—leaving behind one of the most prolific legacies in the history of art.