Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso is one of the best-known artists of the Western world, celebrated for his inventive use of colour and form and his varied output. Picasso’s oeuvre can be dissected into his Blue Period (1901-1904), Rose Period (1904-1906), and his move into Surrealism with the painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) which was inspired by Iberian sculpture, ethnographic objects from Africa, primitivism, and eroticism. Alongside contemporary Georges Braque, Picasso conceived an artistic movement known as Analytical Cubism, which used neutral tones to depict de-constructed objects, offering multiple-perspectives in a single image. He also created the first collage compositions, creating geometric pieces out of newspaper cuttings and wallpaper.  His most renowned work Guernica (1937) was created for the pavilion of the Spanish Republic at the World Fair of 1939 in Paris, painted in response to the bombing of the Basque town of the same name by Nationalist forces during the Spanish Civil War.

Picasso spent many decades producing ceramic designs in the Madoura pottery workshop in Vallauris, France. These pieces often used recognisable motifs from his paintings and drawings, including bulls, portraits, and mythological references. Through his ceramic work, Picasso sought to combine functionality with artistic experimentation. He left behind a prolific output of paintings, sculptures, drawings, ceramics, tapestries and prints which became the basis of the collection for the Musée Picasso in Paris.

Picasso was born in Malága, Spain in 1881. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Barcelona before moving to Madrid to study at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. There are museums dedicated to Picasso’s work in Paris, France, Barcelona, Spain and in his hometown of Malága. His work is held in the collections of international museums and galleries including, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Tate, London and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.