Picasso ‘The Weeping Woman’

ARTIST• Born 25 October 1881 –

8 April 1973) Spain• He is one of the most

recognized figures in 20th-century art. He is best known for co-founding the Cubist movement and for the wide variety of styles embodied in his work.

• Pablo Picasso's parents were Spanish and Italian. He spent his childhood in the Spanish city of Malaga and later moved to Barcelona, Spain, where his father was an art teacher. His great talent was recognized from the time he was a boy (he was a prodigy) and he held his first art exhibition at age 16. It was said that he could draw before he could speak.

• Picasso usually worked from live models

• Picasso demonstrated uncanny artistic talent in his early years, painting in a realistic manner through his childhood and adolescence; during the first decade of the twentieth century his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas. Picasso’s creativity manifested itself in numerous mediums, including painting, sculpture, drawing, and architecture. His revolutionary artistic accomplishments brought him universal renown and immense fortunes throughout his life, making him the best-known figure in twentieth century art.

• The paintings of the Weeping Women are unusual because, for most of his life, Picasso did not show emotions on the faces of people in his pictures. One of the reasons for this change is that Picasso, at the time, was surrounded with sad people and tragic events.

Much of Pablo Picasso’s work is very emotional and reflects his feelings and interests. His paintings often show sadness, confusion and distress as well as happiness.

• Blue period 1901 - 1904 (friend commits suicide and he lives in poverty)

Paintings made in his "rose style” 1904 - 1906, are somewhat more optimistic in mood and brighter colored (often using the color pink).

• Whether by intuition or carefully planned, he was a marketing genius, spinning his own legend at lifetime.Picasso had an excellent business sense. He paid even small amounts by check: People rather keep the check for my famous signature than to cash it. He enjoyed being famous and rich. He was charming and witty and he liked to confuse, to provoke and to have his fun with the public.

• Pablo Picasso - famous as no artist ever had been, he was a pioneer, a master and a protean (assuming different shapes or form) monster, with a hand in every art movement of the century.

• He was a superstitious, sarcastic man, sometimes rotten to his children, often beastly to his women.

Robert Hughes - art critic and author for TIME magazine