PABLO PICASSO: 5 THINGS TO KNOW
Pablo Picasso is the most important artist of the 20th century.
Charismatic and irascible, he loved women but, probably more than any other thing he loved himself. If I had had the chance to meet him, I would have certainly hated him, or I would have fallen at his feet like several women who loved him did.
In this post I’ll talk about 5 things to know about Pablo Picasso, about his life, his works and his lovers.
1 – WHEN PICASSO WAS BORN
Pablo Picasso was born in Malaga in 1881.
His father was an artist and a professor of art, and it was him who introduced little Picasso to art and realized how great his son’s talent was.
2 – PICASSO’S BEGINNING
At the age of 19 Pablo Picasso went to Paris, which at that time was the capital of art. There he lived a bohemian life, and met those who would be the most important artists of the 20th century.
Among his friends there were Amedeo Modigliani, Marc Chagall, and also the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, together with whom he was put on the list of the suspects for the theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911.
3 – PICASSO AND CUBISM
Picasso is famous for being the artist of Cubism, but his artistic career was very long and his style would never be the same.
For this reason, all his artistic production is divided into four “periods”: the “Blue Period”, the “Rose Period”, the “African-influenced Period” and the “Cubist Period”.
It’s his painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon which marked the beginning of Cubism, the most important artistic trend of the 20th century.
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
4 – WHY PICASSO PAINTED GUERNICA
Pablo Picasso painted several important works during his life, but the most famous is Guernica.
It’s a large painting, considered the great masterpiece of the 20th century, exhibited at the Paris International Exposition in 1937, and which aroused great controversy since its first appearance.
Guernica portrays the consequences of the bombing of the small town of Guernica carried out by the Luftwaffe during the Spanish Civil War. When the Nazi ambassador Otto Abetz saw the painting, and asked Picasso: “You did that, didn’t you?”, Picasso answered: “ No, you did”.
5 – WHEN PICASSO DIED
Pablo Picasso’s life was long, adventurous and full of love affairs.
Several women fell at his feet, and each one of them was enchanted by his personality. Some of them couldn’t stand the news of Picasso’s death and committed suicide.
Picasso died in France, in Mougins, in 1973 at the age of 91.
His passing caused a kind of despair among the women who had had a relationship with him. For example, Marie-Therese, who met Picasso when she was only 17 years old, and gave him a daughter, hung herself in 1977. Or Jacqueline, his second wife, who stood by him until the end, and in 1986 shot herself in the head. Then, there was Dora Maar, artist and photographer who said about Picasso: “he is not a man, he is a disease”.
After the end of her relationship with Picasso, Dora suffered from depression, and she said that she didn’t committed suicide only “to deprive him of the satisfaction of seeing her dying for him”.
Considered the greatest artist of the 20th century when he was still alive, Pablo Picasso was probably the most influential personality of the 20th century.
Una foto scattata da Dora Maar e che ritrae Picasso mentre sta lavorando a Guernica.
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