pablo picasso brief biography and paintings

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso was one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, famous for paintings like ‘Guernica’ and for the art movement known as Cubism.

(1881-1973)

Who Was Pablo Picasso?

Pablo Picasso was born in Málaga, Spain, on October 25, 1881. Picasso's mother was Doña Maria Picasso y Lopez. His father was Don José Ruiz Blasco, a painter and art teacher.

His gargantuan full name, which honors a variety of relatives and saints, is Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso.

A serious and prematurely world-weary child, the young Picasso possessed a pair of piercing, watchful black eyes that seemed to mark him destined for greatness.

"When I was a child, my mother said to me, 'If you become a soldier, you'll be a general. If you become a monk you'll end up as the pope,'" he later recalled. "Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso."

Though he was a relatively poor student, Picasso displayed a prodigious talent for drawing at a very young age. According to legend, his first words were "piz, piz," his childish attempt at saying "lápiz," the Spanish word for pencil.

Picasso's father began teaching him to draw and paint when he was a child, and by the time he was 13 years old, his skill level had surpassed his father's. Soon, Picasso lost all desire to do any schoolwork, choosing to spend the school days doodling in his notebook instead.

"For being a bad student, I was banished to the 'calaboose,' a bare cell with whitewashed walls and a bench to sit on," he later remembered. "I liked it there, because I took along a sketch pad and drew incessantly ... I could have stayed there forever, drawing without stopping."

In 1895, when Picasso was 14 years old, his family moved to Barcelona, Spain, where he quickly applied to the city's prestigious School of Fine Arts. Although the school typically only accepted students several years his senior, Picasso's entrance exam was so extraordinary that he was granted an exception and admitted.

Nevertheless, Picasso chafed at the School of Fine Arts' strict rules and formalities, and began skipping class so that he could roam the streets of Barcelona, sketching the city scenes he observed.

In 1897, a 16-year-old Picasso moved to Madrid to attend the Royal Academy of San Fernando. However, he again became frustrated with his school's singular focus on classical subjects and techniques.

During this time, he wrote to a friend: "They just go on and on about the same old stuff: Velázquez for painting, Michelangelo for sculpture." Once again, Picasso began skipping class to wander the city and paint what he observed: gypsies, beggars and prostitutes, among other things.

In 1899, Picasso moved back to Barcelona and fell in with a crowd of artists and intellectuals who made their headquarters at a café called El Quatre Gats ("The Four Cats").

Inspired by the anarchists and radicals he met there, Picasso made his decisive break from the classical methods in which he had been trained, and began what would become a lifelong process of experimentation and innovation.

Picasso remains renowned for endlessly reinventing himself, switching between styles so radically different that his life's work seems to be the product of five or six great artists rather than just one.

Of his penchant for style diversity, Picasso insisted that his varied work was not indicative of radical shifts throughout his career, but, rather, of his dedication to objectively evaluating for each piece the form and technique best suited to achieve his desired effect.

"Whenever I wanted to say something, I said it the way I believed I should," he explained. "Different themes inevitably require different methods of expression. This does not imply either evolution or progress; it is a matter of following the idea one wants to express and the way in which one wants to express it."

Blue Period

Art critics and historians typically break Picasso's adult career into distinct periods, the first of which lasted from 1901 to 1904 and is called his "Blue Period," after the color that dominated nearly all of his paintings over these years.

At the turn of the 20th century, Picasso moved to Paris, France — the center of European art — to open his own studio. Lonely and deeply depressed over the death of his close friend, Carlos Casagemas, he painted scenes of poverty, isolation and anguish, almost exclusively in shades of blue and green.

'Blue Nude’ and ‘The Old Guitarist’

Picasso's most famous paintings from the Blue Period include "Blue Nude," "La Vie" and "The Old Guitarist," all three of which were completed in 1903.

In contemplation of Picasso and his Blue Period, writer and critic Charles Morice once asked, "Is this frighteningly precocious child not fated to bestow the consecration of a masterpiece on the negative sense of living, the illness from which he more than anyone else seems to be suffering?"

Rose Period: 'Gertrude Stein' and 'Two Nudes'

By 1905, Picasso had largely overcome the depression that had previously debilitated him, and the artistic manifestation of Picasso's improved spirits was the introduction of warmer colors—including beiges, pinks and reds—in what is known as his "Rose Period" (1904-06).

Not only was he madly in love with a beautiful model, Fernande Olivier, he was newly prosperous thanks to the generous patronage of art dealer Ambroise Vollard. His most famous paintings from these years include "Family at Saltimbanques" (1905), "Gertrude Stein" (1905-06) and "Two Nudes" (1906).

Cubism was an artistic style pioneered by Picasso and his friend and fellow painter Georges Braque.

In Cubist paintings, objects are broken apart and reassembled in an abstracted form, highlighting their composite geometric shapes and depicting them from multiple, simultaneous viewpoints in order to create physics-defying, collage-like effects. At once destructive and creative, Cubism shocked, appalled and fascinated the art world.

‘Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon’

In 1907, Picasso produced a painting that today is considered the precursor and inspiration of Cubism: "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon."

A chilling depiction of five nude prostitutes, abstracted and distorted with sharp geometric features and stark blotches of blues, greens and grays, the work was unlike anything he or anyone else had ever painted before and would profoundly influence the direction of art in the 20th century.

"It made me feel as if someone was drinking gasoline and spitting fire," Braque said, explaining that he was shocked when he first viewed Picasso's "Les Demoiselles." Braque quickly became intrigued with Cubism, seeing the new style as a revolutionary movement.

French writer and critic Max Jacob, a good friend of both Picasso and painter Juan Gris, called Cubism "the 'Harbinger Comet' of the new century," stating, "Cubism is ... a picture for its own sake. Literary Cubism does the same thing in literature, using reality merely as a means and not as an end."

Picasso's early Cubist paintings, known as his "Analytic Cubist" works, include "Three Women" (1907), "Bread and Fruit Dish on a Table" (1909) and "Girl with Mandolin" (1910).

His later Cubist works are distinguished as "Synthetic Cubism" for moving even further away from artistic typicalities of the time, creating vast collages out of a great number of tiny, individual fragments. These paintings include "Still Life with Chair Caning" (1912), "Card Player" (1913-14) and "Three Musicians" (1921).

Classical Period: ‘Three Women at the Spring’

Picasso’s works between 1918 and 1927 are categorized as part of his "Classical Period," a brief return to Realism in a career otherwise dominated by experimentation. The outbreak of World War I ushered in the next great change in Picasso's art.

He grew more somber and, once again, preoccupied with the depiction of reality. His most interesting and important works from this period include "Three Women at the Spring" (1921), "Two Women Running on the Beach/The Race" (1922) and "The Pipes of Pan" (1923).

From 1927 onward, Picasso became caught up in a new philosophical and cultural movement known as Surrealism , the artistic manifestation of which was a product of his own Cubism.

Picasso's most well-known Surrealist painting, deemed one of the greatest paintings of all time, was completed in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War: "Guernica." After Nazi German bombers supporting Francisco Franco 's Nationalist forces carried out a devastating aerial attack on the Basque town of Guernica on April 26, 1937, Picasso, outraged by the bombing and the inhumanity of war, painted this work of art.

In black, white and grays, the painting is a Surrealist testament to the horrors of war, and features a minotaur and several human-like figures in various states of anguish and terror. "Guernica" remains one of the most moving and powerful anti-war paintings in history.

Later Works: 'Self Portrait Facing Death'

In contrast to the dazzling complexity of Synthetic Cubism, Picasso's later paintings display simple, childlike imagery and crude technique. Touching on the artistic validity of these later works, Picasso once remarked upon passing a group of school kids in his old age, "When I was as old as these children, I could draw like Raphael , but it took me a lifetime to learn to draw like them."

In the aftermath of World War II , Picasso became more overtly political, joining the Communist Party. He was twice honored with the International Lenin Peace Prize, first in 1950 and again in 1961.

By this point in his life, he was also an international celebrity, the world's most famous living artist. While paparazzi chronicled his every move, however, few paid attention to his art during this time. Picasso continued to create art and maintain an ambitious schedule in his later years, superstitiously believing that work would keep him alive.

Picasso created the epitome of his later work, "Self Portrait Facing Death," using pencil and crayon, a year before his death. The autobiographical subject, drawn with crude technique, appears as something between a human and an ape, with a green face and pink hair. Yet the expression in his eyes, capturing a lifetime of wisdom, fear and uncertainty, is the unmistakable work of a master at the height of his powers.

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A lifelong womanizer, Picasso had countless relationships with girlfriends, mistresses, muses and prostitutes, marrying only twice.

He wed a ballerina named Olga Khokhlova in 1918, and they remained together for nine years, parting ways in 1927. They had a son together, Paulo. In 1961, at the age of 79, he married his second wife, Jacqueline Roque.

While married to Khokhlova, he began a long-term relationship with Marie-Thérèse Walter. They had a daughter, Maya, together. Walter committed suicide after Picasso died.

Between marriages, in 1935, Picasso met Dora Maar, a fellow artist, on the set of Jean Renoir's film Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (released in 1936). The two soon embarked upon a partnership that was both romantic and professional.

Their relationship lasted more than a decade, during and after which time Maar struggled with depression; they parted ways in 1946, three years after Picasso began having an affair with a woman named Françoise Gilot, with whom he had two children, son Claude and daughter Paloma. They went separate ways in 1953. (Gilot would later marry scientist Jonas Salk , the inventor of the polio vaccine.)

Picasso fathered four children: Paulo (Paul), Maya, Claude and Paloma Picasso. His daughter Paloma - featured in several of her father's paintings - would become a famous designer, crafting jewelry and other items for Tiffany & Co.

Picasso died on April 8, 1973, at the age of 91, in Mougins, France. He died of heart failure, reportedly while he and his wife Jacqueline were entertaining friends for dinner.

Considered radical in his work, Picasso continues to garner reverence for his technical mastery, visionary creativity and profound empathy. Together, these qualities have distinguished the "disquieting" Spaniard with the "piercing" eyes as a revolutionary artist.

For nearly 80 of his 91 years, Picasso devoted himself to an artistic production that he superstitiously believed would keep him alive, contributing significantly to — and paralleling the entire development of — modern art in the 20th century.

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QUICK FACTS

• Name: Pablo Picasso
• Birth Year: 1881
• Birth date: October 25, 1881
• Birth City: Málaga
• Birth Country: Spain
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Pablo Picasso was one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, famous for paintings like ‘Guernica’ and for the art movement known as Cubism.
• World War II
• Astrological Sign: Scorpio
• La Llotja (Reial Acadèmia Catalana de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi)
• Royal Academy of San Fernando
• School of Fine Arts (Barcelona, Spain)
• Nacionalities
• Interesting Facts
• Picasso devoted himself to an artistic production that he superstitiously believed would keep him alive.
• Pablo Picasso's full name was: Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso.
• Death Year: 1973
• Death date: April 8, 1973
• Death City: Mougins
• Death Country: France

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CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Pablo Picasso Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/artists/pablo-picasso
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: August 28, 2019
• Original Published Date: April 3, 2014
• Whenever I wanted to say something, I said it the way I believed I should. Different themes inevitably require different methods of expression. This does not imply either evolution or progress; it is a matter of following the idea one wants to express and the way in which one wants to express it.
• If only we could pull out our brain and use only our eyes.
• When I was as old as these children, I could draw like Raphael, but it took me a lifetime to learn to draw like them.
• Everything you can imagine is real.
• Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.
• For being a bad student, I was banished to the 'calaboose,' a bare cell with whitewashed walls and a bench to sit on. I liked it there, because I took along a sketch pad and drew incessantly ... I could have stayed there forever, drawing without stopping.
• When I was a child, my mother said to me, 'If you become a soldier, you'll be a general. If you become a monk, you'll end up as the pope.' Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.
• Is this frighteningly precocious child not fated to bestow the consecration of a masterpiece on the negative sense of living, the illness from which he more than anyone else seems to be suffering?
• If you don't know what color to take, take black.
• Accidents, try to change them - it's impossible. The accidental reveals man.
• God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style. He just keeps on trying other things.
• It's not what the artist does that counts. But what he is.
• Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the songs of a bird?
• Of course, you can paint pictures by matching up different parts of them so that they go nicely together, but they'll lack any kind of drama.
• It has often been said that an artist should work for himself, for the love of art, and scorn success. It's a false idea. An artist needs success. Not only in order to live, but primarily so that he can realize his work.
• Nothing can be done without solitude.
• In my case a picture is a sum of destructions. I do a picture, then I destroy it. But in the long run nothing is lost; the red that I took away from one place turns up somewhere else.
• I want to get to the stage where nobody can tell how a picture of mine is done. What's the point of that? Simply that I want nothing but emotion given off by it.
• People who try to explain pictures are usually barking up the wrong tree.

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Summary of Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso was the most dominant and influential artist of the first half of the 20 th century. Associated most of all with pioneering Cubism , alongside Georges Braque , he also invented collage and made major contributions to Symbolism and Surrealism . He saw himself above all as a painter, yet his sculpture was greatly influential, and he also explored areas as diverse as printmaking and ceramics. Finally, he was a famously charismatic personality; his many relationships with women not only filtered into his art but also may have directed its course, and his behavior has come to embody that of the bohemian modern artist in the popular imagination.

Accomplishments

• It was a confluence of influences - from Paul Cézanne and Henri Rousseau , to archaic and tribal art - that encouraged Picasso to lend his figures more structure and ultimately set him on the path towards Cubism, in which he deconstructed the conventions of perspective that had dominated painting since the Renaissance. These innovations would have far-reaching consequences for practically all of modern art, revolutionizing attitudes to the depiction of form in space.
• Picasso's immersion in Cubism also eventually led him to the invention of collage, in which he abandoned the idea of the picture as a window on objects in the world, and began to conceive of it merely as an arrangement of signs that used different, sometimes metaphorical means, to refer to those objects. This too would prove hugely influential for decades to come.
• Picasso had an eclectic attitude to style, and although, at any one time, his work was usually characterized by a single dominant approach, he often moved interchangeably between different styles - sometimes even in the same artwork.
• His encounter with Surrealism, although never transforming his work entirely, encouraged not only the soft forms and tender eroticism of portraits of his mistress Marie-Therese Walter, but also the starkly angular imagery of Guernica (1937), the century's most famous anti-war painting.
• Picasso was always eager to place himself in history, and some of his greatest works, such as Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), refer to a wealth of past precedents - even while overturning them. As he matured he became only more conscious of assuring his legacy, and his late work is characterized by a frank dialogue with Old Masters such as Ingres , Velazquez , Goya , and Rembrandt .

The Life of Pablo Picasso

"I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them." Said Picasso, and whether he was partnering with Braque on Cubism or spending time with the poets he admired, or the muses he loved and craved, he was finding new ways to see, and represent what he saw. His life is a virtual progression of modernism.

Important Art by Pablo Picasso

La Soupe is characteristic of the somber melancholy of Picasso's Blue Period, and it was produced at the same time as a series of other pictures devoted to themes of destitution, old age, and blindness. The picture conveys something of Picasso's concern with the miserable conditions he witnessed while coming of age in Spain, and it is no doubt influenced by the religious painting he grew up with, and perhaps specifically by El Greco. But the picture is also typical of the wider Symbolist movement of the period. In later years Picasso dismissed his Blue Period works as "nothing but sentiment"; critics have often agreed with him, even though many of these pictures are iconic, and of course, now unbelievably expensive.

Oil on canvas - The Art Institute of Chicago

Portrait of Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein was an author, close friend, and even supporter of Picasso, and was integral to his growth as an artist. This portrait, in which Stein is wearing her favorite brown velvet coat, was made just a year before Les Demoiselles d'Avignon , and marks an important stage in his evolving style. In contrast to the flat appearance of the figures and objects in some of the Blue and Rose period works, the forms in this portrait seem almost sculpted, and indeed they were influenced by the artist's discovery of archaic Iberian sculpture. One can almost sense Picasso's increased interest in depicting a human face as a series of flat planes. Stein claimed that she sat for the artist some ninety times, and although that may be an exaggeration, Picasso certainly wrestled long and hard with painting her head. After approaching it in various ways, abandoning each attempt, one day he painted it out altogether, declaring "I can't see you any longer when I look," and soon abandoned the picture. It was only some time later, and without the model in front of him, that he completed the head.

Oil on canvas - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

This painting was shocking even to Picasso's closest artist friends both for its content and its execution. The subject matter of nude women was not in itself unusual, but the fact that Picasso painted the women as prostitutes in aggressively sexual postures was novel. Picasso's studies of Iberian and tribal art is most evident in the faces of three of the women, which are rendered as mask-like, suggesting that their sexuality is not just aggressive, but also primitive. Picasso also went further with his spatial experiments by abandoning the Renaissance illusion of three-dimensionality, instead presenting a radically flattened picture plane that is broken up into geometric shards, something Picasso borrowed in part from Paul Cézanne's brushwork. For instance, the leg of the woman on the left is painted as if seen from several points of view simultaneously; it is difficult to distinguish the leg from the negative space around it making it appear as if the two are both in the foreground. The painting was widely thought to be immoral when it was finally exhibited in public in 1916. Braque is one of the few artists who studied it intently in 1907, leading directly to his Cubist collaborations with Picasso. Because Les Demoiselles predicted some of the characteristics of Cubism, the work is considered proto or pre Cubism.

Oil on canvas - The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Still Life with Chair Caning

Still Life with Chair Caning is celebrated for being modern art's first collage. Picasso had affixed preexisting objects to his canvases before, but this picture marks the first time he did so with such playful and emphatic intent. The chair caning in the picture in fact comes from a piece of printed oilcloth - and not, as the title suggests, an actual piece of chair caning. But the rope around the canvas is very real, and serves to evoke the carved border of a café table. Furthermore, the viewer can imagine that the canvas is a glass table, and the chair caning is the actual seat of the chair that can be seen through the table. Hence the picture not only dramatically contrasts visual space as is typical of Picasso's experiments, it also confuses our sense of what it is that we are looking at.

Oil on canvas - The National Gallery, London

Maquette for Guitar

Picasso's experiments with collaged elements such as those in Still Life with Chair Caning encouraged him to reconsider traditional sculpture as well. Rather than a collage, however, Maquette for Guitar is an assemblage or three-dimensional collage. Picasso took pieces of cardboard, paper, string, and wire that he then folded, threaded, and glued together, making it the first sculpture assembled from disparate parts. The work is also innovative because it is not a solid material surrounded by a void, but instead fluidly integrates mass and its surrounding void. Picasso has translated the Cubist interest in multiple perspectives and geometric form into a three-dimensional medium, using non-traditional art materials that continue to challenge the distinction between high art and popular culture as he did in Ma Jolie (1911-12).

Paperboard, paper, thread, string, twine, and coated wire - The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Bowl of Fruit, Violin and Bottle

Picasso's Bowl of Fruit, Violin and Bottle is typical of his Synthetic Cubism, in which he uses various means - painted dots, silhouettes, grains of sand - to allude to the depicted objects. This combination of painting and mixed media is an example of the way Picasso "synthesized" color and texture - synthesizing new wholes after mentally dissecting the objects at hand. During his Analytic Cubist phase Picasso had suppressed color, so as to concentrate more on the forms and volumes of the objects, and this rationale also no doubt guided his preference for still life throughout this phase. The life of the café certainly summed up modern Parisian life for the artists - it was where he spent a good deal of time talking with other artists - but the simple array of objects also ensured that questions of symbolism and allusion might be kept under control.

In this work, Picasso challenges the distinction between high art and popular culture, pushing his experiments in new directions. Building on the geometric forms of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon , Picasso moves further towards abstraction by reducing color and by increasing the illusion of low-relief sculpture. Most significantly, however, Picasso included painted words on the canvas. The words, "ma jolie" on the surface not only flatten the space further, but they also liken the painting to a poster because they are painted in a font reminiscent of one used in advertising. This is the first time that an artist so blatantly uses elements of popular culture in a work of high art. Further linking the work to pop culture and to the everyday, "Ma Jolie" was also the name of a popular tune at the time as well as Picasso's nickname for his girlfriend.

The Three Musicians

Picasso painted two version of this picture. The slightly smaller version hangs in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, but both are unusually large for Picasso's Cubist period, and he may have chosen to work on this grand scale because they mark the conclusion of his Synthetic Cubism, which had occupied him for nearly a decade. He painted it in the same summer as the very different, classical painting Three Women at the Spring . Some have interpreted the pictures as nostalgic remembrances of the artist's early days: Picasso sits in the center - as ever the Harlequin - and his old friends Guillaume Apollinaire, who died in 1918, and Max Jacob, from whom he had become estranged, sit on either side. However, another argument links the pictures to Picasso's work for the Ballets Russes, and identifies the characters with more recent friends. Either way, the costumes of the figures certainly derive from traditions in Italian popular theatre.

Oil on canvas - The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia

Three Women at the Spring

Picasso made careful studies in preparation for this, his most ambitious treatment of what is an old classical subject. It makes reference to earlier pictures by Poussin and Ingres - titans of classical painting - but it also draws inspiration from Greek sculpture, and indeed the massive gravity of the figures is very sculptural. Critics have speculated that the subject appealed to him because of the recent birth of his first son, Paulo; the somber attitude of the figures may be explained by the contemporary preoccupation in France with mourning the dead of the First World War.

Large Nude in a Red Armchair

When Picasso's work came under the influence of the Surrealists in the late 1920s, his forms often took on melting, organic contours. This work was completed in May 1929, around the same time the Surrealists were preoccupied with the way in which ugly and disgusting imagery might provide a route into the unconscious. It was clearly intended to shock, and it may have been influenced by Salvador Dalí - and Joan Miro. It is thought that the picture represents the former dancer Olga Koklova, whose relationship with Picasso was failing around this time.

Oil on canvas - Musée National Picasso, Paris

This painting was Picasso's response to the bombing of the Basque town named Guernica on April 26, 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. Painted in one month - from May to June 1937 - it became the centerpiece of the Spanish pavilion at the Paris World's Fair later that year. While it was a sensation at the fair, it was consequently banned from exhibition in Spain until military dictator Francisco Franco fell from power in 1975. Much time has been spent trying to decode the symbolism of the picture, and some believe that the dying horse in the center of the painting alludes to the people of Spain. The minotaur may allude to bull fighting, a favorite national past-time in Spain, though it also had complex personal significance for the artist. Although Guernica is undoubtedly modern art's most famous response to war, critics have been divided on its success as a painting.

Oil on canvas - Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid

Biography of Pablo Picasso

Pablo Ruiz Picasso was born into a creative family. His father was a painter, and he quickly showed signs of following the same path: his mother claimed that his first word was "piz," a shortened version of lapiz , or pencil, and his father was his first teacher. Picasso began formally studying art at the age of 11. Several paintings from his teenage years still exist, such as First Communion (1895), which is typical in its conventional, if accomplished, academic style. His father groomed the young prodigy to be a great artist by getting Picasso the best education the family could afford and visiting Madrid to see works by Spanish Old Masters. And when the family moved to Barcelona so his father could take up a new post, Picasso continued his art education.

Early Training

It was in Barcelona that Picasso first matured as a painter. He frequented the Els Quatre Gats, a café popular with bohemians, anarchists, and modernists. And he came to be familiar with Art Nouveau and Symbolism , and artists such as Edvard Munch and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec . It was here that he met Jaime Sabartes, who would go on to be his fiercely loyal secretary in later years. This was his introduction to a cultural avant-garde , in which young artists were encouraged to express themselves.

During the years from 1900 to 1904, Picasso traveled frequently, spending time in Madrid and Paris, in addition to spells in Barcelona. Although he began making sculpture during this time, critics characterize this time as his Blue Period, after the blue/grey palette that dominated his paintings. The mood of the work was also insistently melancholic. One might see the beginnings of this in the artist's sadness over the suicide of Carlos Casegemas, a friend he had met in Barcelona, though the subjects of much of the Blue Period work were drawn from the beggars and prostitutes he encountered in city streets. The Old Guitarist (1903) is a typical example of both the subject matter and the style of this phase.

In 1904, Picasso's palette began to brighten, and for a year or more he painted in a style that has been characterized as his Rose Period. He focused on performers and circus figures, switching his palette to various shades of more uplifting reds and pinks. And around 1906, soon after he had met artist Georges Braque , his palette darkened, his forms became heavier and more solid in aspect, and he began to find his way towards Cubism .

Mature Period

In the past critics dated the beginnings of Cubism to his early masterpiece Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907). Although that work is now seen as transitional (lacking the radical distortions of his later experiments), it was clearly crucial in his development since it was heavily influenced by African sculpture and ancient Iberian art. It is said to have inspired Braque to paint his own first series of Cubist paintings, and in subsequent years the two would mount one of the most remarkable collaborations in modern painting, sometimes eagerly learning from each other, at other times trying to outdo one another in their fast-paced and competitive race to innovate. They visited each other daily during their formulation of this radical technique, and Picasso described himself and Braque as "two mountaineers, roped together." In their shared vision, multiple perspectives on an object are depicted simultaneously by being fragmented and rearranged in splintered configurations. Form and space became the most crucial elements, and so both artists restricted their palettes to earth tones, in stark contrast with the bright colors used by the Fauves that had preceded them. Picasso would always have an artist or a group he collaborated with, but as Braque biographer Alex Danchev wrote: Picasso's "Braque period" was "the most concentrated and fruitful of his whole career."

Picasso rejected the label "Cubism," especially when critics began to differentiate between the two key approaches he was said to pursue - Analytic and Synthetic . He saw his body of work as a continuum. But it is beyond doubt that there was a change in his work around 1912. He became less concerned with representing the placement of objects in space than in using shapes and motifs as signs to playfully allude to their presence. He developed the technique of collage , and from Braque he learned the related method of papiers colles , which used cutout pieces of paper in addition to fragments of existing materials. This phase has since come to be known as the "Synthetic" phase of Cubism, due to its reliance on various allusions to an object in order to create the description of it. This approach opened up the possibilities of more decorative and playful compositions, and its versatility encouraged Picasso to continue to utilize it well in the 1920s.

But the artist's dawning interest in ballet also sent his work in new directions around 1916. This was in part prompted by meeting the poet, artist, and filmmaker Jean Cocteau . Through him he met Sergei Diaghilev , and went on to produce numerous set designs for the Ballets Russes.

For some years Picasso had occasionally toyed with classical imagery, and he began to give this free rein in the early 1920s. His figures became heavier and more massive, and he often imagined them against backgrounds of a Mediterranean Golden Age. They have long been associated with the wider conservative trends of Europe's so-called rappel a l'ordre , (return to order), a period of art now known as Interwar Classicism .

His encounter with Surrealism in the mid 1920s again prompted a change of direction. His work became more expressive, and often violent or erotic. This phase in his work can also be correlated with the period in his personal life when his marriage to dancer Olga Khokhlova began to break down and he began a new relationship with Marie-Therese Walter. Indeed, critics have often noted how changes in style in Picasso's work often go hand in hand with changes in his romantic relationships; his partnership with Khokhlova spanned the years of his interest in dance and, later, his time with Jacqueline Roque is associated with his late phase in which he became preoccupied with his legacy alongside the Old Masters. Picasso frequently painted the women he was in love with, and, as a result, his tumultuous personal life is well represented on canvas. He was known to have kept many mistresses, most famously Eva Gouel, Dora Maar , and Françoise Gilot. He married twice, and had four children, Claude, Paloma, Maia, and Paulo.

In the late 1920s he began a collaboration with the sculptor Julio González . This was his most significant creative partnership since he had worked alongside Braque, and it culminated in welded metal sculptures, which were subsequently highly influential.

As the 1930s wore on, political concerns began to cloud Picasso's view, and these would continue to preoccupy him for some time. His disgust at the bombing of civilians in the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War prompted him to create the painting Guernica , in 1937. During World War II he stayed in Paris, and the German authorities left him sufficiently unmolested to allow him to continue his work. However, the war did have a huge impact on Picasso, with his Paris painting collection confiscated by Nazis and some of his closest Jewish friends killed. Picasso made works commemorating them - sculptures employing hard, cold materials such as metal, and a particularly violent follow up to Guernica , entitled The Charnel House (1945). Following the war he was also closely involved with the Communist Party, and several major pictures from this period, such as War in Korea (1951), make that new allegiance clear.

Late Years and Death

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Picasso worked on his own versions of canonical masterpieces by artists such as Nicolas Poussin , Diego Velázquez , and El Greco . In the later years of his life, Picasso sought solace from his celebrity, marrying Jacqueline Rogue in 1961. His later paintings were heavily portrait-based and their palettes nearly garish in hue. Critics have generally considered them inferior to his earlier work, though in recent years they have been more enthusiastically received. He also created many ceramic and bronze sculptures during this later period. He died of a heart attack in the South of France in 1973.

The Legacy of Pablo Picasso

Picasso's influence was profound and far-reaching, and remarkably, many periods of his life were influential in their own right. His early Symbolist pieces remain iconic, while innovations in pioneering Cubism established a set of pictorial problems, devices, and approaches, which remained important well into the 1950s. Even after the war, even though the energy in avant-garde art shifted to New York, Picasso remained a titanic figure, and one who could never be ignored. Indeed, even though the Abstract Expressionists could be said to have superseded aspects of Cubism (even while being strongly influenced by him), The Museum of Modern Art in New York has been called "the house that Pablo built," because it has so widely exhibited the artist's work. MoMA's opening exhibition in 1930 included fifteen paintings by Picasso. He was also a part of Alfred Barr's highly influential survey shows Cubism and Abstract Art (1936) and Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism (1936-37). Although his influence undoubtedly waned in the 1960s, he had by that time become a pop icon, and the public's fascination with his life story continue to fuel interest in his work.

Influences and Connections

Useful Resources on Pablo Picasso

• Pablo Picasso: Lives and Loves The Art Story Blog: The many women and muses of Picasso
• Picasso: Works Entering the Public Domain in 2019 Copyrights expire in the United States for a number of Picasso artworks
• Defining Modern Art Take a look at the big picture of modern art, and Picasso's role in it
• Timeline of Most Important Modern Art Picasso's 3 important works are a part of the overall history of Modern Art
• A Life of Picasso: The Prodigy, 1881-1906 By John Richardson
• A Life of Picasso: The Cubist Rebel, 1907-1916 By John Richardson
• A Life of Picasso: The Triumphant Years, 1917-1932 By John Richardson
• Picasso (Dover Fine Art, History of Art) By Gertrude Stein
• Life with Picasso Our Pick By Françoise Gilot
• Picasso & Lump: A Dachshund's Odyssey By David Douglas Duncan, Paloma Picasso Thevenet
• Picasso: 200 Masterpieces from 1898 to 1972 Our Pick By Pablo Picasso, Bernard Picasso, Bernice Rose
• Pablo Picasso, 1881-1973: Genius of the Century By Walther F. Ingo
• Picasso and the war years, 1937-1945 (1999) Guggenheim Exhibition Catalogue / By Steven A. Nash, Robert Rosenblum, Brigitte Baer
• Picasso and American Art By Michael FitzGerald, Julia May Boddewyn
• Picasso Line Drawings and Prints By Pablo Picasso
• Picasso Administration Official Website
• Picasso Museum Our Pick Museum in Madrid, Spain
• Page about the painting Guernica (1937)
• Page about the painting The Tragedy (1903) Analysis of painting beneath this painting. By National Gallery of Art
• The Artist Pablo Picasso By Robert Hughes / Time Magazine / June 8, 1998
• Artists on Picasso: Then and Now July 19, 2007
• Simon Schama's Power of Art series, on Picasso's Guernica
• Picasso: a documentary by Luciano Emmer
• Le Mystere Picasso: a documentary by Henri-Georges Clouzot
• Visit to Picasso: A Documentary by Paul Haesaert Our Pick
• Surviving Picasso (1996) Story of Picasso's lover Françoise Gilot
• Picasso and Braque Go to the Movies 2008 Documentary about the beginnings of Cubism
• David Bowie Music Video

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Content compiled and written by The Art Story Contributors

Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

Pablo picasso (1881–1973).

Marble head from the figure of a woman

Woman in Green

Pablo Picasso

The Blind Man's Meal

At the Lapin Agile

Gertrude Stein

Bust of a Man

Woman in an Armchair

Standing Female Nude

Still Life with a Bottle of Rum

Man with a Hat and a Violin

Bottle and Wine Glass on a Table

Woman in White

Nude Standing by the Sea

Reading at a Table

The Dream and Lie of Franco II

Faun with Stars

Head of a Woman

James Voorhies Department of European Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

October 2004

The artistic genius of Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) has impacted the development of modern and contemporary art with unparalleled magnitude. His prolific output includes over 20,000 paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, ceramics, theater sets and costumes that convey myriad intellectual, political, social, and amorous messages. His creative styles transcend realism and abstraction, Cubism , Neoclassicism, Surrealism, and Expressionism. Born in Málaga, Spain, in 1881, Picasso studied art briefly in Madrid in 1897, then in Barcelona in 1899, where he became closely associated with a group of modernist poets, writers, and artists who gathered at the café Els Quatre Gats (The Four Cats), including the Catalan Carlos Casagemas (1880–1901).

Living intermittently in Paris and Spain until 1904, his work during these years suggests feelings of desolation and darkness inspired in part by the suicide of his friend Casagemas. Picasso’s paintings from late 1901 to about the middle of 1904, referred to as his Blue Period, depict themes of poverty, loneliness, and despair. In The Blind Man’s Meal ( 50.188 ) from 1903, he uses a dismal range of blues to sensitively render a lonely figure encumbered by his condition as he holds a crust of bread in one hand and awkwardly grasps for a pitcher with the other. The elongated, corkscrew bodies of El Greco (1540/41–1614) inspire the man’s distorted features.

Picasso moved to Paris in 1904 and settled in the artist quarter Bateau-Lavoir, where he lived among bohemian poets and writers such as Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918) and Max Jacob (1876–1944). In At the Lapin Agile ( 1992.391 ) from 1905, Picasso directed his attention toward more pleasant themes such as carnival performers, harlequins, and clowns. In this painting, he used his own image for the harlequin figure and abandoned the daunting blues in favor of vivid hues, red for example, to celebrate the lives of circus performers (categorically labeled his Rose Period). In Paris, he found dedicated patrons in American siblings Gertrude (1874–1946) and Leo (1872–1947) Stein, whose Saturday-evening salons in their home at 27, rue des Fleurus was an incubator for modern artistic and intellectual thought. At the Steins he met other artists living and working in the city—generally referred to as the School of Paris —such as Henri Matisse (1869–1954). Painted in 1905–6, Gertrude Stein ( 47.106 ) records Picasso’s new fascination with pre-Roman Iberian sculpture and African and Oceanic art. Concentrating on intuition rather than strict observation, and unsatisfied with the features of Stein’s face, Picasso reworked her image into a masklike manifestation stimulated by primitivism. The influence of African and Oceanic art is explicit in his masterpiece Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907; Museum of Modern Art, New York), a painting that signals the nascent stages of Cubism. Here the figure arrangement recalls Cézanne’s compositions of bathers, while stylistically it is influenced by primitivism, evident by the angular planes and well-defined contours that create an overall sculptural solidity in the figures.

The basic principles of Analytic Cubism (1910–12), with its fragmentation of three-dimensional forms on a two-dimensional picture plane, are embodied in Still Life with a Bottle of Rum ( 1999.363.63 ), painted in 1911. The techniques of Analytic Cubism were developed by Picasso and the French artist Georges Braque (1882–1963), who met in 1907. Picasso’s Bottle and Wine Glass on a Table ( 49.70.33 ) of 1912 is an early example of Synthetic Cubism (1912–14), a papier collé in which he pasted newsprint and colored paper onto canvas. Picasso and Braque also included tactile components such as cloth in their Synthetic Cubist works, and sometimes used trompe-l’oeil effects to create the illusion of real objects and textures, such as the grain of wood.

After World War I (1914–18), Picasso reverted to traditional styles, experimenting less with Cubism. In the early 1920s, he devised a unique variant of classicism using mythological images such as centaurs, minotaurs, nymphs, and fauns inspired by the classical world of Italy. Within this renewed expression, referred to as his Neoclassical Period, he created pictures dedicated to motherhood inspired by the birth of his son Paulo in 1921 (his first of four children by three women). Woman in White ( 53.140.4 ) of 1923 shows a woman clothed in a classic, toga-like, white dress resting calmly in a contemplative pose with tousled hair, eliciting a tender lyricism and calming spirit of maternity. Toward the end of the 1920s, Picasso drew on Surrealist imagery and techniques to make pictures of morphed and distorted figures. In Nude Standing by the Sea ( 1996.403.4 ) of 1929, Picasso’s figure recounts the classical pose of a standing nude with her arms upraised, but her body is swollen and monstrously rearranged.

By the early 1930s, Picasso had turned to harmonious colors and sinuous contours that evoke an overall biomorphic sensuality. He painted scenes of women with drooping heads and striking voluptuousness with a renewed sense of optimism and liberty, probably inspired by his affair with a young woman (one of Picasso’s numerous mistresses) named Marie-Thérèse Walter (1909–1977).  Reading at a Table ( 1996.403.1 ) from 1934 uses these expressive qualities of bold colors and gentle curves to portray Marie-Thérèse seated at an oversized table, emphasizing her youth and innocence.

Although still living in France in the 1930s, Picasso was deeply distraught over the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. He reacted with a powerfully emotive series of pictures, such as  Dream and Lie of Franco ( 1986.1224.1[2] ), that culminated in the enormous mural Guernica (1937; Reina Sofía National Museum, Madrid), painted in a grisaille palette of gray tones. This painting, Picasso’s contribution to the Spanish Pavilion in the 1937 Exposition Universelle in Paris, is a complex work of horrifying proportion with layers of antiwar symbolism protesting the fascist coup led by Generalissimo Francisco Franco.

From the late 1940s through the ’60s, Picasso’s creative energy never waned. Living in the south of France, he continued to paint, make ceramics, and experiment with printmaking. His international fame increased with large exhibitions in London, Venice, and Paris, as well as retrospectives in Tokyo in 1951, and Lyon, Rome, Milan, and São Paulo in 1953. A retrospective in New York at the Museum of Modern Art in 1957 garnered a massive amount of attention, with over 100,000 visitors during the first month. This exhibition solidified Picasso’s prominence as museums and private collectors in America, Europe, and Japan vied to acquire his works.

In Faun with Stars ( 1970.305 ) from 1955, Picasso returned to the mythological themes explored in early pictures. Again, incorporating life experience into his painting, he evoked his infatuation with a new love, a young woman named Jacqueline Roque (1927–1986), who became his second wife in 1961 when the artist was seventy-nine years old. Picasso symbolized himself as a faun, calmly and coolly gazing with mature confidence and wisdom at a nymph who blows her instrument to the stars. The picture embraces his spellbound love for Jacqueline.

Even into his eighties and nineties, Picasso produced an enormous number of works and reaped the financial benefits of his success, amassing a personal fortune and a superb collection of his own art, as well as work by other artists. He died in 1973, leaving an artistic legacy that continues to resonate today throughout the world.

Voorhies, James. “Pablo Picasso (1881–1973).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pica/hd_pica.htm (October 2004)

Further Reading

Karmel, Pepe. Picasso and the Invention of Cubism . New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.

Léal, Brigitte, Christine Piot, and Marie-Laure Bernadac. The Ultimate Picasso . New York: Abrams, 2003.

Olivier, Fernande. Loving Picasso: The Private Journal of Fernande Olivier . Edited by Marilyn McCully. New York: Abrams, 2001.

Richardson, John. A Life of Picasso . 2 vols. New York: Random House, 1991–96.

Richardson, John, with the collaboration of Marilyn McCully. A Life of Picasso . 2 vols. New York: Random House, 1991.

Rose, Bernice B., and Bernard Ruiz Picasso, eds. Picasso: 200 Masterworks from 1898 to 1972 . Exhibition catalogue. Boston: Bullfinch Press, 2002.

Rubin, William, ed. Pablo Picasso: A Retrospective . Exhibition catalogue. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1980.

Zervos, Christian. Pablo Picasso . 33 vols. (catalogue raisonné). Paris: Cahiers d'Art, 1932–78.

Additional Essays by James Voorhies

• Voorhies, James. “ Europe and the Age of Exploration .” (October 2002)
• Voorhies, James. “ Francisco de Goya (1746–1828) and the Spanish Enlightenment .” (October 2003)
• Voorhies, James. “ Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) .” (October 2004)
• Voorhies, James. “ School of Paris .” (October 2004)
• Voorhies, James. “ Art of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in Naples .” (October 2003)
• Voorhies, James. “ Elizabethan England .” (October 2002)
• Voorhies, James. “ Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) and His Circle .” (October 2004)
• Voorhies, James. “ Fontainebleau .” (October 2002)
• Voorhies, James. “ Post-Impressionism .” (October 2004)
• Voorhies, James. “ Domestic Art in Renaissance Italy .” (October 2002)
• Voorhies, James. “ Surrealism .” (October 2004)

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Biography Online

Biography Pablo Picasso

“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”

– Pablo Picasso

Short bio of Pablo Picasso

“When I was a child my mother said to me, ‘If you become a soldier, you’ll be a general. If you become a monk, you’ll be the pope.’ Instead I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.”

—- Pablo Picasso

His early artistic career went through various states. One of the first stages was known as the ‘Blue Period.’ In his late-teens his paintings were dominated by different shades of dark blue; they were also often melancholic. This included a famous self-portrait where Picasso looked much older than his 20 years.

Pablo_Picasso 1905 – ‘At the Lapin Agile;

During 1904-06, Picasso entered a phase known as ‘The Rose Period’ Losing the glumness of his previous ‘Blue Period’, Picasso painted circus clowns, harlequins and people from the circus. The more cheerful and optimistic tone helped to attract an increasing number of patrons and people interested in his work. In particular, the American art collectors Leo and Gertrude Stein, and the art dealer, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler.  Kahnweiler was influential in helping to put Picasso on a secure financial footing. Picasso later remarked; “What would have become of us if Kahnweiler hadn’t had a business sense?”

In 1907, Picasso continued his artistic experiments and took inspiration from African art. This led to an early form of cubism and also one of his most controversial paintings – ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’ – it is a picture depicting five prostitutes in a brothel. It is an eye-catching and an original exploration of modernism in art, but when displayed in his studio the reaction from art critics was strongly negative.

‘Nature morte au compotier’ – 1914-15, ‘crystal cubism.’

In the years before the First World War, Picasso – along with artists such as Georges Braque – continued to develop a new form of painting known as ‘cubism.’ Cubism involved capturing the essence of the subject on the canvas but exaggerating certain features. The colours were invariably dull – greys, brown and neutrals.

In 1914, Picasso was living in Avignon with fellow artists. His French artist friends were called up to the army, but he was able to continue painting during the war. However, the German-born Kahnweiler was exiled from France and Picasso was left without a dealer.

In 1918, Picasso married ballerina Olga Khokhlova. Shortly after he began a fruitful relationship with the French art dealer Paul Rosenberg. Rosenberg became good friends with Picasso and helped the couple settle in Paris, giving Picasso a new artistic social circle. Paris was considered an artistic hotspot of the ‘Roaring Twenties,’ attracting many innovative artists. Picasso and his wife Khokholva had a tempestuous relationship. Picasso’s bohemian nature clashed with the social graces of Khokhlova. They remained married until 1955, but Picasso had several affairs and mistresses.

In the 1920s and 30s, Picasso concentrated on more classical works of art. He became interested in depicting the human form in the style of neo-classical. To some extent, he was influenced by artists such as Renoir and Ingres, although he always retained a unique and individual expression.

Picasso had an instinctive and natural compassion for those exposed to suffering, especially if it was as a result of injustice. His natural sympathy and desire for equality led him to join the French Communist party. During the Spanish Civil War, he supported the Republicans and nursed an intense dislike of Franco and what he did to Spain.

Pablo Picasso and Guernica

One of Picasso’s most famous paintings was his mural of the Guernica bombing (1937). The Guernica bombing was carried out by Italian and German planes and involved the carpet bombing of civil areas. The bombing of Guernica was a significant development in modern warfare as it showed a  new capacity for extending the horrors of warfare to the civilian population. The bombing became international news through the English journalist George Steer. Picasso’s painting helped to immortalise the tragedy as a key event in the Twentieth Century. (See: Events that changed the world )

Picasso was so enraged with Franco that he never allowed the painting to go to Spain during Franco’s lifetime. It eventually reached Spain in 1981.

Picasso was well aware of a political dimension to art.

“What do you think an artist is? …he is a political being, constantly aware of the heart breaking, passionate, or delightful things that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war.”

— Pablo Picasso

The Dove of Peace by Picasso

Another key painting of Picasso was his simple bird drawing a symbol of peace. Picasso donated it the Soviet-backed World Peace Congress of 1949. It was telling of a new phase in Picasso’s art – the power of simplicity. Picasso was a member of the French Communist Party until his death.

Abundant in artistic inspiration, Picasso was remarkably prolific. His total artistic work numbered close to 50,000. This included 1,885 paintings; 1,228 sculptures; 2,880 ceramics, and roughly 12,000. He died at the age of 91.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “Biography of Pablo Picasso”, Oxford, UK. www.biographyonline.net , 2/11/2007. Last updated 17th March 2017.

Books on Picasso

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• Was Picasso spiritual? – in-depth article looking at the spiritual side of Pablo Picasso.
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Early Life and Work

Other stylistic innovations, later life and work, bibliography.

Who are they?

Who is Pablo Picasso?

Welcome to the experimental world of Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso Composition (1948) Tate

© Succession Picasso/DACS 2024

Pablo Picasso is one of the most famous artists of the twentieth-century. Why? Because he was brilliant at drawing. People really loved his doodles. What do you think of the drawing above? Look at how he has used colour…how many colours can you see? What objects are in the picture?

Even as a child he was better at drawing than many adults. He could draw and paint just about anything, and in any style. He liked to experiment and try out new ideas, which is important if you are an artist, because the world is always changing. Picasso helped us see the world in new ways

Pablo Picasso Horse with a Youth in Blue (1905–6) Tate

Pablo Picasso The Studio (1955) Tate

the colourful stages of picasso's life

Picasso was so experimental, and created so many different kinds of art that historians have divided his life and the art he made into stages. The Blue Period and the Rose Period came first (when he used lots of blue and pink to make paintings). These were followed by primitivism, cubism, classicism (when he created more traditional or classic artworks), surrealism, wartime and Late Works.

What is Cubism?

a closer look at cubism

One of his most famous periods is the cubist period. The painting below is one of his cubist pictures. Cubism is when the artist paints an object, like a bottle, from lots of different angles all in the same picture. So you see the front, the back and the sides of the bottle at the same time. In a way, it’s a bit like having x-ray eyes!

Pablo Picasso Bowl of Fruit, Violin and Bottle (1914) Lent by the National Gallery 1997

Picasso was born in Malaga in Spain in 1881, but in 1904 when he was 23 he moved to Paris. This is because Paris was the capital of the avant-garde, which means cutting-edge and very cool. Picasso became friends with lots of artists and writers, like Georges Braque who he invented cubism with; and a writer called Gertrude Stein who collected art wrote a cubist book. He became interested in art from other continents too. You can see some of these influences in his paintings.

Look how expressive this artwork is!

Pablo Picasso The Three Dancers (1925) Tate

In 1937 the Spanish Civil War broke out. The picture below is called The Weeping Woman, and it was painted in protest to the bombing of a town called Guernica in Spain. The woman is crying but her face is all mixed up. This is because it is a cubist painting. If you look closely you can see that Picasso has painted both the front of the woman’s face and the side of her face. Hold your hand up to the picture and cover the left side of her face. Can you see that she is now in profile? Picasso was trying to show us what pain and unhappiness looks like. What do you feel when you look at this painting?

But Picasso has also painted hope. The woman’s right ear has turned into a bird that is drinking her tears away and there is a pretty flower in her hat, showing us that new life is just around the corner.

What do you think of Pablo’s work? If you drew a portrait of your best friend in the style of Picasso, how would it look?

Pablo Picasso Portrait of a Woman after Cranach the Younger (1958) Tate

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• Pablo Picasso

Reading Comprehension: A Short Biography of Pablo Picasso

Develop your reading skills. Read the following Short Biography of Pablo Picasso and do the comprehension task.

Pablo Picasso: A Legacy of Art and Controversy”

Pablo Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973)

Pablo Picasso is considered to be one of the most famous painters in the twentieth century. He was born in Malaga, Spain on October 20, 1881. In addition to painting, Picasso was also a printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright. He spent most of his adult life in France.

Picasso showed a passion and a skill for drawing from an early age. According to his mother, his first words were “piz, piz”, a shortening of lápiz, the Spanish word for “pencil”. From the age of seven, Picasso received formal artistic training from his father in figure drawing and oil painting. On one occasion, the father found his son painting over his unfinished sketch of a pigeon. Observing the precision of his son’s technique, the father felt that the thirteen-year-old Picasso had surpassed him, and vowed to give up painting.

Picasso grew up to become one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Picasso is now regarded as one of the artists who most defined the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century

Personal Life And Death

Picasso had affairs with a lot of women and was married twice and had four children, Paulo, Maya, Claude, and Paloma by three women. He died on 8 April 1973 in Mougins, France, while he and his wife Jacqueline entertained friends for dinner. He was interred at the Chateau of Vauvenargues near Aix-en-Provence, a property he had acquired in 1958 and occupied with Jacqueline between 1959 and 1962. Jacqueline Roque prevented his children Claude and Paloma from attending the funeral. Devastated and lonely after the death of Picasso, Jacqueline Roque killed herself by gunshot in 1986 when she was 59 years old.

Source: Wikipedia

Comprehension:

• Picasso was born in France. a. True b. False
• His father taught him to paint. a. True b. False
• All his children are by the women he married. a. True b. False
• All his children attended the funeral. a. True b. False

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Pablo picasso.

• His full name comprised total of 23 words.
• His first word was “Piz”, short form of “Lapiz” which means  pencil  in Spanish – a basic tool of painting.
• He was intensely inquired about the Mona Lisa theft happened in 1911.
• His Last words were “Drink to me, drink to may health, you know i can’t drink anymore.”

Paintings of Pablo Picasso

Daniel-henry kahnweiler by pablo picasso.

December 25, 2015 20th Century Cubism Portrait Painting Western No comments

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Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler , Famous , Half Length Portrait

Guernica by Pablo Picasso

February 5, 2014 20th Century Cubism Western 1 Comment

Guernica is a well-appraised painting by the acclaimed artist Pablo Picasso. This mural sized painting was artist’s reaction to the real life bombing on the town of Guernica in Spain during the Spanish Civil War in 1937. The painting and its world-tour during the year helped largely to bring the world’s attention towards the ongoing civil war and its harsh consequences. Today, the painting has become the anti-war symbol. According to some reviewers, the painting was the greatest accomplishment of Picasso’s career for its impacts on the world about the bombing. Picasso and his fellows pushed Cubism ahead with entirely accepting the art-movement and the represented art is a piece of cubist art. The Real Guernica Bombing Bombing of Guernica happened on 26th April, 1937. […]

Black and White , Bull , Famous , Horse , Mother and Child , War

Garçon à la pipe by Pablo Picasso

January 28, 2014 20th Century Portrait Painting Western No comments

Pablo Picasso’s second most expensive painting of all the time. The boy sitting in blue clothes with red-brownish background and flower paints on the wall is having a smoking pipe in his hand and a garland on his head. Picasso was around 24 years old when he painted this art-piece. Moreover, the painting belongs to his Rose Period. Apparently, it was the time, when Picasso was painting the natural figure before he jumped into the Cubism Movement, which gave us the Guernica. The latest price of the panting in May, 2004 was around $104 million ($129 million with adjusted price inflation), which was highest price for a painted sold at an auction. The recent trend to buy a painting at big price tag just because the […]

Boy , Famous , Garland , Picasso's Rose Period , Pipe , Smoking , Three Quarter Length Portrait

Le Reve by Pablo Picasso

January 23, 2014 20th Century Portrait Painting Western 3 Comments

Le Reve (“Dream” in French) is Pablo Picasso‘s most famous, expensive and also controversial painting of all the time. The highly contrasting colors and the overly simplified depiction is from Picasso’s period of distorted depictions. He had various periods of different types of depictions in his art during his lifetime. This style is said to be near style of Fauvism, which also used contrasting colors. A little controversy attached to this piece of art is that Picasso has depicted an erect penis over the face of the woman, which is not official but many critics believe it to be portrayal of his own. Artists do include hidden messages, ideas or designs in their paintings often and the apparent resemblance of the painting is provoking the critics […]

Expensive , Famous , Picasso's Distorted Depictions Period , Reverie , Spanish , Spanish Girl

La Vie by Pablo Picasso

May 26, 2013 20th Century Western No comments

Couple , Mother and Child , Nude , Picasso's Blue Period , Spanish

Les Noces de Pierrette (The marriage of Pierrette) by Pablo Picasso

Expensive , Famous , Picasso's Blue Period , Spanish , Woman

Yo Picasso by Pablo Picasso

May 26, 2013 20th Century Portrait Painting Western No comments

Expensive , Expressionist , Famous , Half Length Portrait , Self Portrait , Spanish

Au Lapin Agile by Pablo Picasso

May 26, 2013 20th Century Genre Painting Western No comments

Bar , Drinking , Guitar , Guitarist , Harlequin , Spanish

Acrobate et jeune arlequin (Acrobat and Young Harlequin) by Pablo Picasso

May 20, 2013 Portrait Painting Western No comments

Acrobat , Clown , Double Portrait , Full Length Portrait , Harlequin , Sword

Femme aux Bras Croisés (Woman with Arms Crossed) by Pablo Picasso

May 19, 2013 20th Century Portrait Painting No comments

Famous , Individual Portrait , Picasso's Blue Period , Three Quarter Length Portrait , Three Quarter View Portrait , Woman

Guernica, 1937 by Pablo Picasso

Probably Picasso's most famous work, Guernica is certainly his most powerful political statement, painted as an immediate reaction to the Nazi's devastating casual bombing practice on the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.

Guernica shows the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts upon individuals, particularly innocent civilians. This work has gained a monumental status, becoming a perpetual reminder of the tragedies of war, an anti-war symbol, and an embodiment of peace. On completion Guernica was displayed around the world in a brief tour, becoming famous and widely acclaimed. This tour helped bring the Spanish Civil War to the world's attention.

This work is seen as an amalgamation of pastoral and epic styles. The discarding of color intensifies the drama, producing a reportage quality as in a photographic record. Guernica is blue, black and white, 3.5 meters (11 ft) tall and 7.8 meters (25.6 ft) wide, a mural-size canvas painted in oil. This painting can be seen in the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid.

Interpretations of Guernica vary widely and contradict one another. This extends, for example, to the mural's two dominant elements: the bull and the horse. Art historian Patricia Failing said, "The bull and the horse are important characters in Spanish culture. Picasso himself certainly used these characters to play many different roles over time. This has made the task of interpreting the specific meaning of the bull and the horse very tough. Their relationship is a kind of ballet that was conceived in a variety of ways throughout Picasso's career."

Some critics warn against trusting the political message in Guernica. For instance, the rampaging bull, a major motif of destruction here, has previously figured, whether as a bull or Minotaur, as Picasso's ego. However, in this instance the bull probably represents the onslaught of Fascism. Picasso said it meant brutality and darkness, presumably reminiscent of his prophetic. He also stated that the horse represented the people of Guernica.

Historical Context of the Masterpiece

Guernica is a town in the province of Biscay in Basque Country. During the Spanish Civil War, it was regarded as the northern bastion of the Republican resistance movement and the epicenter of Basque culture, adding to its significance as a target.

The Republican forces were made up of assorted factions (Communists, Socialists, Anarchists, to name a few) with wildly differing approaches to government and eventual aims, but a common opposition to the Nationalists. The Nationalists, led by General Francisco Franco, were also factionalized but to a lesser extent. They sought a return to the golden days of Spain, based on law, order, and traditional Catholic family values.

At about 16:30 on Monday, 26 April 1937, warplanes of the German Condor Legion, commanded by Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, bombed Guernica for about two hours. Germany, at this time led by Hitler, had lent material support to the Nationalists and were using the war as an opportunity to test out new weapons and tactics. Later, intense aerial bombardment became a crucial preliminary step in the Blitzkrieg tactic.

Guernica is an icon of modern art, the Mona Lisa for our time. As Leonardo da Vinci evoked a Renaissance ideal of serenity and self-control, Guernica should be seen as Picasso's comment on what art can actually contribute towards the self-assertion that liberates every human being and protects the individual against overwhelming forces such as political crime, war, and death.

10 Facts of Guernica

1. Guernica , Picasso's most important political painting, has remained relevant as a work of art and as a symbol of protest, and it kept the memory of the Basque town's nightmare alive. While Picasso was living in Nazi-occupied Paris during World War II, one German officer allegedly asked him, upon seeing a photo of Guernica in his apartment, "Did you do that?" Picasso responded, "No, you did." 2. Guernica was a commissioned painting. After the bombing of Guernica, Picasso was made aware of what had gone on in his country of origin. At the time, he was working on a mural for the Paris Exhibition to be held in the summer of 1937, commissioned by the Spanish Republican government. He deserted his original idea and on 1 May 1937, began on Guernica. This captivated his imagination unlike his previous idea, on which he had been working somewhat dispassionately, for a couple of months. It is interesting to note, however, that at its unveiling at the Paris Exhibition that summer, it garnered little attention. It would later attain its power as such a potent symbol of the destruction of war on innocent lives. 3. Perhaps because Picasso learned about the Guernica bombing by reading an article in newspaper, the suggestion of torn newsprint appears in the painting. It doubles as the horse's chain mail. 4. Picasso's patriotism and sense of justice outweighed physical location. He had not been to Spain, the country of his birth, for several years when the Nazis bombed the Spanish town of Guernica in 1937. He was living in Paris at the time, and never returned to his birthplace to live. Nevertheless, the attack, which killed mainly women and children, shook the artist to the core. 5. In 1974, an antiwar activist and artist, Tony Shafrazi, would deface the mural with red spray paint as a protest statement. It was on display at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art at the time. Curators immediately cleaned the painting, and Shafrazi went to jail, charged with criminal mischief. 6. Picasso was adamant that Guernica remains at the Met until Spain re-established a democratic republic. It would not be until 1981, after both the artist's and Franco's deaths, that Spanish negotiators were finally able to bring the mural home. 7. During his creation of "Guernica," Picasso allowed a photographer to chronicle its progress. Historians believe that the resulting black and white photos inspired the artist to revise his earlier colored versions of the artwork to a starker, more impactful palette. 8. Not only did the artist use lack of color to express the starkness of the aftermath of the bombing, he also specially ordered house paint that had a minimum amount of gloss. The matte finish, in addition to the shades of grey, white and blue-black, set an outspoken yet unadorned tone for the artwork. 9. The mural contains some hidden images. One of them is a skull, which is superimposed over the horse's body. Another is a bull formed from the horse's bent leg. Three daggers replace tongues in the mouths of the horse, the bull and the screaming woman. 10. Two of the artist's signature images, the Minotaur and the Harlequin , figure in Guernica. The Minotaur, which symbolizes irrational power, dominates the left side of the work. The harlequin, a partially hidden component just off-center to the left, cries a diamond-shaped tear. The harlequin traditionally symbolizes duality. In the iconography of Picasso's art, it is a mystical symbol with power over life and death. Perhaps the artist inserted the harlequin to counterbalance the deaths he depicted in the mural.

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The old guitarist, girl before a mirror, three musicians, the weeping woman, the women of algiers, dora maar au chat, girl with mandolin, portrait of gertrude stein, family of saltimbanques, portrait of ambroise vollard, massacre in korea.

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Art History and Artists

Pablo picasso.

• Occupation: Artist
• Born: October 25, 1881 in Málaga, Spain
• Died: April 8, 1973 in Mougins, France
• Famous works: The Pipes of Pan, Three Musicians, Guernica, The Weeping Woman
• Style/Period: Cubism , Modern Art

• His full name is Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso. Wow!
• His mother once told him when he was a child that "If you become a soldier, you'll be a general. If you become a monk you'll end up as the pope."
• In the 1930s Picasso became fascinated with the mythical creature the Minotaur. This creature had the body of a man and the head of a bull. It appeared in many of his pieces of art.
• He produced over 1,800 paintings and 1,200 sculptures.
• Many of his paintings have been sold for over $100 million!
• He was married twice and had four children.
• Listen to a recorded reading of this page:

Gernika Club, Picasso’s painting and Spain’s flawed reckoning with its traumatic past

“Franco burned Gernika… but Franco, for me, was Spain ’s saviour from everything.”

Rafael Madariaga is talking about the bombing of the northern Spanish town of Gernika on April 26, 1937, during the country’s Civil War. Carried out by the air forces of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini at the behest of Spain’s dictator, General Francisco Franco, it was one of the first aerial bombings of a civilian population — and it inspired one of the world’s most famous paintings: Pablo Picasso’s Guernica.

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Madariaga is a survivor of the bombing and his memories of the day are crystal clear, 87 years on. He remembers the flames from the town’s ruins illuminating the surrounding mountains and the anxious wait he experienced as a seven-year-old who did not know whether his father and brother had made it. “We lost everything we had,” Madariaga, 95, says.

Franco’s Nationalist troops occupied Gernika three days later. Soon, the whole of Spain was in the grip of a dictatorship that would last until Franco’s death in 1975. The country is still grappling with its legacy today.

Madariaga went on to become president and manager of the town’s semi-professional football team, now known as Gernika Club (Gernika is the town’s official Basque language name, which we will be using throughout this article).

Now playing in Spain’s fourth tier, their history reflects the contrasting, conflicting narratives the country has struggled with since the Civil War — a period that takes in official lies, silence and a desire to recover lost memory.

Located 13 miles to the north east of Bilbao, Gernika is a town that was symbolic long before it was bombed. It is part of the Basque Country, a region of northern Spain and across the border in France that shares linguistic, historical and cultural ties — today it is estimated that nearly a million people speak the Basque language, Euskara.

Kings of Spain used to travel to Gernika to promise to respect the rights of the Basque people and Lehendakaris (presidents of the Basque government) are sworn in beneath the Tree of Gernika, an oak tree whose oldest predecessor was planted in the 14th century and which features on the Gernika Club badge. The tree and the town’s Assembly House (Casa de Juntas) where it stands were among the few things not destroyed by the bombing in 1937.

When Athletic Bilbao won the Copa del Rey earlier this month, they took the cup to the Casa de Juntas. There was another link to the town — beaten finalists Real Mallorca are managed by the Mexican Javier Aguirre, nicknamed ‘El Vasco’ (the Basque), whose mother emigrated from Gernika.

📽 Así ha sido el homenaje al Athletic Club esta mañana en el Árbol de Gernika. 🏆 Eskerrik asko, @bbnnbizkaia ! #UniqueInTheWorld #AthleticClub 🦁 pic.twitter.com/9fxMNJzXna — Athletic Club (@AthleticClub) April 9, 2024

The bombing brought Gernika to international attention. In 1936, the Nationalist general Franco staged a military uprising against the country’s republican government and his troops took control of parts of Spain. When the Republicans held firm in several areas, it led to a bloody conflict in which around 500,000 people died.

The Basque Country became a key target for the Nationalists. Backed by Nazi Germany’s Condor Legion and fascist Italy ’s Aviazione Legionaria, they threatened to destroy the province of Biscay in which Gernika is located if the population did not submit to their troops. On March 31, 1937, the Italians bombed the nearby town of Durango, killing more than 200 people.

Then came Gernika.

On Monday, April 26 — market day in the town — Hitler and Mussolini’s planes attacked. According to the Gernika Peace Museum, at least 31 tonnes of bombs were dropped on the town and more than 85 per cent of its buildings were totally destroyed. The Basque government recorded 1,654 deaths, a number disputed by Franco’s dictatorship.

Many outside Spain first learned of the bombing through the reports of the South African-born British journalist George Steer. Writing for The Times of London, his eyewitness account of the attack’s aftermath remains as shocking as it was nearly 90 years ago.

“At 2am today when I visited the town the whole of it was a terrible sight, flaming from end to end,” Steer wrote. “The reflection of the flames could be seen in the clouds of smoke above the mountains from 10 miles away. Throughout the night, houses were falling until the streets became long heaps of red impenetrable debris.”

Steer recounted how the bombing had lasted “precisely three hours and a quarter” and detailed how German fighter planes had “plunged low from above the centre of the town to machine-gun those of the civilian population who had taken refuge in fields”. He rejected the idea that Gernika had been a strategic target, pointing out how an arms factory and two military barracks had remained untouched.

“The object of the bombardment was seemingly the demoralisation of the civil population and the destruction of the cradle of the Basque race,” he wrote.

Franco refused to take responsibility for the attack, instead accusing Basque republicans — or “the reds” — of setting fire to the town. The truth was in Steer’s reports, reproduced in other newspapers including The New York Times.

Unsurprisingly, Spanish football was largely put on hold from 1936 to 1939.

Gernika Club were founded in 1922 as the Sociedad Deportiva Guernica Club (Guernica Club Sporting Society). They played in Biscay’s regional leagues but folded in 1934 due to financial problems. There was still an appetite for football in the town, however, given the success of three Gernika-born players in Spain’s Primera Division — Athletic’s Rafael Iriondo, Candido ‘Makala’ Gardoy of Espanol (now known by their Catalan name, Espanyol ) and Real Madrid ’s Gotzon Arzanegui.

That led to the re-establishment of the club by a group of fans, including a former director, in 1942. Their new statutes included an article that read, “the Society declares itself unaffiliated to all political ideas, completely prohibiting any discussions related to this”. Anyone who broke this rule would be “expelled from the building by a member of the director’s board”.

But the spectre of the bombing loomed large. Franco’s government set up a department called ‘Regiones Devastadas’ after the Civil War to rebuild Gernika and other towns that had been ruined during the conflict (Franco would later be named an ‘adoptive son’ of Gernika). The club received funds from the department to build a stadium and used rubble from the bombing to fill in the ground at their new location towards the north of the town, the Campo de Zubikoa. During times of heavy rain, that rubble would be exposed.

There was another way in which politics still played a role. “When the club began again in the 1940s, practically all the directors were people who had been from the Nationalists’ side,” says Segundo Oar-Arteta, a historian of Gernika Club. “To be mayor, to be a councillor, to be the director of a bank, you needed to be a person who had won the war. And the directors of Gernika Club were also like that.”

In 1955, the club faced going under again after being evicted from their Zubikoa ground by a jewellery and silverware company which argued it was entitled to the land. They were saved when a shop owner, Luciano Cearsolo, told the board it could not shut down the club. He set up a new committee which successfully lobbied the council for a new ground — but was blocked from becoming president. He was a known Basque nationalist and a former lieutenant in the Basque army, who had fought against Franco’s troops in the Civil War.

Madariaga took charge instead and would serve as president — aside from a brief spell as manager — until 1972, close to the end of Franco’s reign. He remembers some players singing banned Gudari (Basque soldier) songs but says he spoke “nothing” of politics.

The club did embark on a tour of Germany, in which they visited another bombed city in Pforzheim, but Madariaga says this was not of a political nature. According to the former president, it came about after a German team visited Gernika, having played against neighbouring club Bermeo.

At home, Gernika Club flitted between Biscay’s regional leagues and lifted the region’s Copa Vizcaya at Athletic Bilbao’s old San Mames stadium in 1958. According to Jose Mari Gorrono, the town’s current mayor from the independent Guztiontzako Herria party (‘The town for everyone’ in Euskara), some fans wore the club’s badges as an indirect symbol of resistance against Franco’s regime when he was growing up.

But the silence around the bombing affected the club in the same way as any of Gernika’s inhabitants.

“My father was a survivor of the bombing — he couldn’t speak about that. If he spoke about that, they would arrest him,” says Anton Gandarias Astelarra, the secretary of Gernika Club. “When we (the club) went away to games against other teams, we couldn’t talk about this.”

The silence around the bombing contrasted with its coverage in the outside world — especially when it came to Picasso’s painting.

Living in Paris when the Civil War broke out, Picasso had been asked to produce a work for the Spanish tent at the 1937 International Exposition in the French capital. When the Malaga-born artist read Steer’s reports in the French press, he found his subject.

The result was a stark anti-war painting called Guernica. Painted in black and white to evoke the newspapers where Picasso learned of the bombing, it shows a woman crying out as she holds her dead child, a horse rearing its head and a bull — a symbol of Spain — among other images. A fallen soldier clutches a shattered sword with a flower growing out of it while a fire rages.

“It was a scream for the horrors that had befallen the home city of the Basques,” says Gijs van Hensbergen, an art historian and author of Guernica: The Biography of a Twentieth-Century Icon. “It’s a chaotic, brutal scene, which art historians and myself have tried to unpick and understand — but it had a huge effect on other artists as well, they felt the power. And it still has that incredible power today.”

Guernica has never been displayed in the town it takes its name from, although it is still very present. Prints appear in the mayor’s office, restaurants and shops across the town. A mosaic form near the Casa de Juntas carries the Basque caption ‘Guernica Gernikara’ — Guernica to Gernika — reflecting calls for it to be transported here. Gernika Club hand out prints of Picasso’s masterpiece to each new club they visit and in 2022 released a commemorative shirt for their centenary with the painting on the front.

“I can’t think of any other town or city in the world that is most automatically associated with one artwork — and the most famous artwork of the 20th century,” Van Hensbergen says.

Picasso insisted Guernica should not be displayed in his native Spain until democracy was restored. In 1981, the Spanish government finally secured its return, six years after Franco’s death. On seeing it in Madrid, the Basque-born communist Dolores Ibarruri, more commonly known as La Pasionaria (‘The Passionflower’) said: “The Civil War has finished.”

Spain’s transition to democracy was defined by a so-called ‘Pact of Forgetting’ in which politicians on the left and right agreed not to prosecute atrocities committed during the Civil War. It helped the country move beyond the conflict in the short term, but in the long term led to deep trauma.

Franco’s remains were only removed from the grand Valle de los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen) cemetery, built by political prisoners, in 2019. In recent years, descendants of those killed by his regime have dug up mass graves in a bid to find their relatives. A ‘Law of Democratic Memory’ introduced by current Socialist Party prime minister Pedro Sanchez to confront the past continues to attract opponents.

Barcelona, Real Madrid & Franco: How two rivals united in exploiting a painful divide

Gernika has positioned itself as a ‘city for peace’, with initiatives linking it with other bombed cities including Hiroshima and Dresden. In 1997, the then-German president Roman Herzog wrote to survivors to express regret for his country’s role in the attack. In 2022, on the 85th anniversary, Sanchez’s government issued a declaration that “for the first time in history” expressed Spain’s “unmitigated condemnation”.

It is hard to picture Gernika before the bombing. Today, it is a quiet town surrounded by the green mountains of the Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve. Little remains of the pre-bombing days apart from two former arms factories and an old water tanker as you enter the town. The 10-minute walk from the centre to Gernika Club’s Urbieta stadium takes you past another survivor of the bombing: a bridge that was left untouched, despite Franco’s insistence this was a strategic attack.

Gernika Club are not overtly political but remain a proud Basque club. They are one of 160 in the region affiliated with Athletic who help the Bilbao side maintain their unique policy of only signing Basque players — Athletic striker Asier Villalibre came through the ranks at Gernika. They play in the Segunda Federacion, the regionalised fourth tier of Spanish football, in a group that includes the reserve teams of La Liga clubs including Athletic, Real Sociedad and Deportivo Alaves.

On a Sunday afternoon in March for a mid-table match against Tudelano, a team from the autonomous community of Navarre, sweeping views of the mountains contrast with the bruising game on display at the Estadio Urbieta, which is far from reaching its 3,000 capacity. Gernika fall behind within 40 seconds, lose defender Gaizka Argente to a second yellow card after half-time and are outclassed in a 4-1 defeat, with academy graduate Iker Amorrortu scoring two of their opponents’ goals.

In a dingy room for press conferences, head coach German Beltran — a former Real Madrid youth player who once trained alongside Iker Casillas and Samuel Eto’o — is in a sombre mood. The 44-year-old knows what Gernika represents, as an honorary Basque who has played for and managed several clubs in the region.

“I’m incredibly proud to fly the flag for Gernika wherever we go,” says Beltran. “On a cultural level and in terms of tourism, it’s an incredible place. It’s a privilege to live here… There’s no doubt we’ll take Gernika as high as possible.”

Gernika secured their status in the division earlier this month and their immediate aim is to qualify for next season’s Copa del Rey; they are eighth in their 18-team group, which would be enough as things stand given Athletic, Real Zaragoza, Alaves and Real Sociedad’s youth teams are above them but are ineligible for Spain’s cup competition.

But the bombing still matters to them, even if fewer survivors remain as each year passes. For a new generation of ‘gernikenses’ (people from Gernika), it continues to stir strong emotions. Just ask Ramon Santos Gandaria, Gernika Club’s 26-year-old social media manager whose grandfather lived through the attack.

“Every year on April 26, at 4pm they turn on the sirens — that’s when the bombing started,” he says.

“In that moment when the sirens ring out and you look to the sky, you ask: ‘What would it have been like then to see planes dropping bombs, what impact would it have?’

“That’s when it reaches you.”

Like any institution that bears the town’s name, Gernika Club remain linked to the bombing. According to Iratxe Momoitio Astorkia, the director of the Gernika Peace Museum, it would be a “dangerous form of amnesia” if the town stopped being associated with the attack.

“During many years it’s been a part of resistance and denial,” she says. “During other years it’s been about claiming our right to say what we weren’t allowed to.

“Now it’s the pride of being able to remember and to defend the other ‘Gernikas’. To give — through the name of Gernika — a voice to others who have experienced suffering.”

(Top photo: The Athletic /Pedro Gandarias. Visual design by Eamonn Dalton)

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Tomás Hill López-Menchero is a Junior Editor at The Athletic focused on La Liga. He previously worked for ESPN and The Times. In 2022 he was named student sports journalist of the year by the UK’s national council for the training of journalists. He is bilingual Spanish-English and fluent in French. Follow Tomás on Twitter @ tomas_hill