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Pablo Ruiz Picasso (October 25, 1881 – April 8, 1973) was a Spanish
painter and sculptor. His full name was Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan
Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Clito Ruiz y
Picasso[1]. One of the most recognized figures in 20th century art, he is best
known as the co-founder, along with Georges Braque, of cubism.
Pablo Picasso was born in Málaga, Spain, the first child of José Ruiz y Blasco and
María Picasso y López. He was christened with the names Pablo, Diego, José,
Francisco de Paula, Juan Nepomuceno, Maria de los Remedios, and Cipriano de la
Santísima Trinidad.
Picasso's father was Jose Ruíz, a painter whose specialty was the naturalistic
depiction of birds and who for most of his life was also a professor of art at the
School of Crafts and a curator of a local museum. The young Picasso showed a
passion and a skill for drawing from an early age; according to his mother, his
first word was "piz," a shortening of lápiz, the Spanish word for pencil. It was
from his father that Picasso had his first formal academic art training, such as
figure drawing and painting in oil. Although Picasso attended carpenter schools
throughout his childhood, often those where his father taught, he never finished
his college-level course of study at the Academy of Arts (Academia de San Fernando)
in Madrid, leaving after less than a year.
 Personal
life
Picasso's friend Gertrude Stein, who had more than 80
sittings for this 1906 portrait.After studying art in Madrid, he made his
first trip to Paris in 1900, the art capital of Europe. In Paris, he lived
with Max Jacob (journalist and poet), who helped him learn French. Max slept
at night and Picasso slept during the day as he worked at night. They were
times of severe poverty, cold and desperation. Much of his work had to be
burned to keep the small room warm. In 1901, with his friend Soler, he founded
the magazine Arte Joven in Madrid. The first edition was entirely illustrated
by him. From that day, he started to simply sign his work Picasso, while
before he signed Pablo Ruiz y Picasso. In the early years of the twentieth
century, Picasso, still a struggling youth, divided his time between Barcelona
and Paris, where in 1904, he began a long term relationship with Fernande
Olivier. It is she who appears in many of the Rose period paintings. After
acquiring fame and some fortune, Picasso left Olivier for Marcelle Humbert,
whom Picasso called Eva. Picasso included declarations of his love for Eva in
many Cubist works.
In Paris, Picasso entertained a distinguished coterie of friends in the Montmartre
and Montparnasse quarters, including André Breton, Guillaume Apollinaire, and
writer Gertrude Stein. He maintained a number of mistresses in addition to his wife
or primary partner. Picasso was married twice and had four children by three
women.
In 1918 Picasso married Olga Khokhlova, a ballerina with Sergei Diaghilev's troupe,
for whom Picasso was designing a ballet, Parade, in Rome. Khokhlova introduced
Picasso to high society, formal dinner parties, and all the social niceties
attendant on the life of the rich in 1920s Paris. The two had a son, Paulo, who
would grow up to be a dissolute motorcycle racer and chauffeur to his father.
Khokhlova's insistence on social propriety clashed with Picasso's bohemian
tendencies and the two lived in a state of constant conflict. In 1927 Picasso met
17 year old Marie-Thérèse Walter and began a secret affair with her. Picasso's
marriage to Khokhlova soon ended in separation rather than divorce, as French law
required an even division of property in the case of divorce, and Picasso did not
want Khokhlova to have half his wealth. The two remained legally married until
Khokhlova's death in 1955. Picasso carried on a long-standing affair with
Marie-Thérèse Walter and fathered a daughter, Maia, with her. Marie-Thérèse lived
in the vain hope that Picasso would one day marry her, and hanged herself four
years after Picasso's death.
The photographer and painter Dora Maar was also a constant companion and lover of
Picasso. The two were closest in the late 1930s and early 1940s and it was Maar who
documented the painting of Guernica.
After the liberation of Paris in 1944, Picasso began to keep company with a young
art student, Françoise Gilot. The two eventually became lovers, and had two
children together, Claude and Paloma. Unique among Picasso's women, Gilot left
Picasso in 1953, allegedly because of abusive treatment and infidelities. This came
as a severe blow to Picasso.
He went through a difficult period after Gilot's departure, coming to terms with
his advancing age and his perception that, now in his 70s, he was no longer
attractive, but rather grotesque to young women. A number of ink drawings from this
period explore this theme of the hideous old dwarf as buffoonish counterpoint to
the beautiful young girl, including several from a six-week affair with Geneviève
Laporte, who in June 2005 auctioned off the drawings Picasso made of her.
Picasso was not long in finding another lover, Jacqueline Roque. Roque worked at
the Madoura Pottery, where Picasso made and painted ceramics. The two remained
together for the rest of Picasso's life, marrying in 1961. Their marriage was also
the means of one last act of revenge against Gilot. Gilot had been seeking a legal
means to legitimize her children with Picasso, Claude and Paloma. With Picasso's
encouragement, she had arranged to divorce her then husband, Luc Simon, and marry
Picasso to secure her children's rights. Picasso then secretly married Roque after
Gilot had filed for divorce in order to exact his revenge for her leaving him.
Picasso had constructed a huge gothic structure and could afford large villas in
the south of France, at Notre-dame-de-vie on the outskirts of Mougins, in the
Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Although he was a celebrity, there was often as much
interest in his personal life as his art.
In addition to his manifold artistic accomplishments, Picasso had a film career,
including a cameo appearance in Jean Cocteau's Testament of Orpheus. Picasso always
played himself in his film appearances. In 1955 he helped make the film Le Mystère
Picasso (The Mystery of Picasso) directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot.
Pablo Picasso died on April 8, 1973 in Mougins, France, while he and his wife
Jacqueline entertained friends for dinner. His final words were "Drink to me, drink
to my health, you know I can't drink any more." He was interred at Castle
Vauvenargues' park, in Vauvenargues, Bouches-du-Rhône. Jacqueline Roque prevented
his children Claude and Paloma from attending the funeral.
Source : Some of the information on
this page came from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU
Documentation License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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Pablo
Picasso - Projector - Biography
