Picasso, Pablo

Picasso, Pablo (1881-1973), Spanish painter.

As a boy Pablo Picasso showed outstanding skill as a painter.

He did one of his most famous paintings, Barefoot Girl, at the age of fourteen, and four years later he won a gold medal for Customs of Aragon.

In 1901, he went to live in Paris and during the next ten years he became one of the most famous painters in the world.

More has been written about Picasso than about any other artist of his time.

His work includes many different kinds of paintings and also sculptures in several different kinds of material. In addition he has produced pictures for books, pottery, designs for curtains, and scenery for ballet performances.

In his early days, the camera was being used more and more and artists wanted to show things in their paintings differently from the way photographs showed them. They started a new style of painting called Cubism and Picasso soon became the leading cubist painter.

One of his most famous paintings, The Three Musicians, is shown here.

His masterpieces include many other large-scale paintings such as The Accordionist (1911), Guernica (1937) and Night-Fishing at Antibes (1939).

Picasso went to live in Cannes, France in 1955 and died there in 1973.