1881 - 1973

Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish painter and sculptor. One of the most recognized figures in 20th century art, he is best known as the co-founder, along with Georges Braque, of cubism. It has been estimated that Picasso produced about 13,500 paintings, 100,000 prints or engravings, 34,000 book illustrations and 300 sculptures or ceramics.

Picasso was born in 1881 in Malaga, Spain. The son of a drawing teacher, the young Picasso showed a passion and a skill for drawing from an early age. It was from his father that Picasso had his first formal academic art training, such as figure drawing and painting. Although Picasso attended carpenter schools throughout his childhood, and he took college-level courses  at the Academy of Arts in Madrid, Picasso never finished his schooling.

In the early years of the twentieth century, Picasso, still a struggling youth, divided his time between Barcelona and Paris. He spent time with a distinguished circle of friends in the Montmartre and Montparnasse quarters, including André Breton, Guillaume Apollinaire, and writer Gertrude Stein.

Picasso's work is often categorized into "periods". The Blue Period of Picasso, between 1901 and 1904, was when the style of Pablo Picasso's paintings were heavily emotional, often blue in color. The Rose Period signifies the time when the style of his painting used cheerful orange and pink colors, and lasted from 1905 to 1907. These periods were then followed by the African Period, Analytic and Synthetic Cubism, Classic and Surrealist periods.

By 1936, the artist was profoundly influenced by the Spanish Civil War. This resulted in his famous painting "Guernica" (1937). Mythological and Spanish themes, such as the Minotaur and the bullfight, dominated the painting and later became symbols of the War and the Fascist atrocities.

Pablo Picasso died on April 8, 1973 in Mougins, France at the age of 91.