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Game changers: Pablo Picasso

There was barely an art movement in the 20th century that Picasso didn’t inspire, create or contribute to.

Pablo Picasso is rightly renowned as one of the world’s greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century. Together with Georges Braque, he created the style of cubism, an approach that permeated much of his most famous paintings.

Born in Spain in 1881, Picasso went to art school, where his father was a professor at, and was soon recognised for his exceptional talent. Picasso then attended the Royal Academy of Art in Barcelona, before moving to France to pursue his art career.

Early in his time in Paris, during the depression and living in extreme poverty himself, he experienced and produced art in what would later become known as his Blue Period. As his success and financial troubles passed, he entered his Rose Period. These two phases were precursors to his most famous cubism phase, where he interpreted and expressed natural forms as geometric shapes, often somewhat distorted.

Picasso was exceptionally prolific, producing an estimated 50,000 artworks throughout his esteemed career. This includes over 1,200 sculptures, nearly 3,000 ceramics, around 12,000 drawings and 1,885 paintings. It was in painting that Picasso made the most important contribution.

There was barely an art movement in the 20th century that Picasso didn’t inspire, create or contribute to. Indeed, no painter or sculptor was as famous as Picasso in his own lifetime.

Source:
Culture Trip
Telegraph.co.uk
Wikipedia

Image courtesy of My Modern Met.

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