Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso{{ref|name}}, formally Pablo Ruiz Picasso, Spanish painter, (October 25, 1881 – April 8, 1973) was one of the recognized masters of 20th century art, probably most famous as the founder, along with Georges Braque, of Cubism.

Later works

In the 1950s his style changed once again as he began looking at the art of the great masters, and making new art about it. He made a series of works based on Velazquez's painting of Las Meninas. He also based paintings on works on art by Goya, Poussin, Manet, Courbet and Delacroix. During this time he lived at Cannes and in 1955 helped make the film Le Mystère Picasso (The Mystery of Picasso) directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot.

Related Topics:
Velazquez - Las Meninas - Goya - Poussin - Manet - Courbet - Delacroix - Henri-Georges Clouzot

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Picasso had accumulated a huge fortune 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. The media would give him much attention, though they were often more interested in his personal life than his art.

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He was commissioned to make a maquette for a huge 50 foot high sculpture to be built in Chicago, Illinois, known usually as the Chicago Picasso. He approached the project with a great deal of enthusiasm, designing a sculpture which was ambiguous and became somewhat controversial. What the figure is exactly is not known; it could be a bird, a horse, a woman or a totally abstract shape. The sculpture, one of the most recognizable landmarks of downtown Chicago was unveiled in 1967. Picasso refused to be paid $100,000 for it, donating it to the people of Chicago.

Related Topics:
Maquette - Chicago, Illinois - Chicago Picasso

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In his 80s and 90s, Picasso, no longer quite the energetic dynamo he had been in his youth, became more and more impotent. To a man for whom this was such an important part of life, this was a serious life change and Picasso seems to have dealt with it by redoubling his already prolific artistic output.

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Picasso's final works were a mixture of styles, his styles and periods changing right until the end of his life. Devoting his full energies to his work, Picasso became more daring, his works more colourful and expressive, and from 1968 through 1971 he produced a torrent of paintings and hundreds of copperplate engravings. At the time these works were dismissed by most as pornographic fantasies of an impotent old man or the slapdash works of an artist who was past his prime. One long time admirer, Douglas Cooper, called them "the incoherent scribblings of a frenetic old man". Only later, after Picasso's death, when the rest of the art world had moved on from abstract expressionism, did the critical community come to see that Picasso had already discovered neo-expressionism and was, as usual, ahead of his time.

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Pablo Picasso died on April 8, 1973, and was interred at Castle Vauvenargues' park, in Vauvenargues, Bouches-du-Rhône. Jacqueline Roque prevented his children Claude and Paloma from attending the funeral. His final words were "drink to me".

Related Topics:
April 8 - 1973 - Vauvenargues - Bouches-du-Rhône - Final words

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