Pablo Picasso

 Pablo Ruiz y Picasso was born in Malaga,Spain, on October 2, 1881 of Jose Ruiz Blasco Picasso and Maria Picasso y Lopez.  He had used his father's last name as his own, but signed his mothers maiden name until 1901 when he decided to stop using Ruiz completely and just go with Pablo Picasso.  He had always been an art genius and had been painting since he was ten.

 
Blue Period
     Picasso made three trips to Paris between 1900 and 1902.  He finally moved there in 1904.  This is where he went through what is known now as his blue period.  During this time he used mainly different shades of blue and portrayed the seedy parts of town including beggars, alcoholics, and prostitutes.

The Rose Period
     After he moved to Paris he met Fernande Oliver who influenced the mood of his work from dark and gloomy blues to light and happy reds and pinks which led this period in time to be called the Rose Period.  At this time he painted many pictures of a circus that he visited often during his stay in Paris.

Protocubism
     In 1906, Picasso moved to Gosol, Spain where he changed his style.  His new works where influenced by Greek, Iberian, and African art.  He began to use more geometrical figures in his artwork  During this time he also made a picture that resembled fractured glass that was, at the time, a very radical idea.
Analytic Cubism
     Between 1908 and 1911 Picasso and  George Braque painted landscape paintings in a new style.  This style was termed cubism by a critic who described the work as being made of "little cubes".  They created this style by breaking down and analyzing a object. 
 The main color scheme was browns and other muddy colors (monochromatic color).
 
Synthetic Cubism
     In 1912, Picasso began to paste paper and pieces of oilcloth to his paintings and then paint either on them or around them.  These where his first collages.  This technique is called synthetic cubism.  This is a more decorative, colorful style of art.  He has done some synthetic cubism, but not particularly a lot.
Realist and Surrealist
     Pablo Picasso has said that he was not a surrealist, but many of his pictures have a surrealist feel to them.  During this time (World War I) he went to Rome and met and married Olga Koklova.  He painted many realistic pictures of her.  Later in the 1920's he painted neoclassical pictures of women and pictures inspired by greek mythology.
 
G u e r n i c a

      Guernica was a work that was done to express his outrage of the German bombing of the Basque town of Guernica on April 26, 1937 during the Spanish Civil War.  The painting is not a portrayal of the actual bombing, but a symbol of the act itself.
Post War World II
     After World War II Picasso moved towards more somber death like pictures.  He married painter Francoise Gilot.  He had two children with her, Claude and Palmoa.  He later met another woman named Jacqueline Rosque whom he married in 1961.  He died April 8, 1973.