Pablo Picasso

A found of Cubism and one of the greatest artists of the 20C

Born in Barcelona, and able to paint like an Old Master by the time he was a teenger, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was probably the most important artist of last century,

Picasso dipped his brush into several of the important early 20th century movements, helping establish Cubism and redefine Surrealism in the process. 

Artist like Picasso and Braque decided to try and paint objects from all points of view at once, accepting that the canvas is flat and merely representing all visible angles by painting them adjacent to each other rather than using optical tricks like perspective to fool viewers into seeing three dimensions.

The fractured, imploding-looking result was called Cubism, and was expanded upon by the likes of Frenchman Léger (1881-1955) and the Spaniard Gris (1887-1927), while Picasso himself moved on to other styles.

Great Picasso quotes

• It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.
• Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.
• There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot—but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into sun.
• Bad artists copy. Good artists steal. 
• The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.
• I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else.
• There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.
• I do not seek. I find.
• Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.
• All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
• Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.
• The world today doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?
• Are we to paint what's on the face, what's inside the face, or what's behind it?
• I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
• Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again. And what do we teach our children? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.
• Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
• Everything you can imagine is real.
• Painting is a blind man's profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen.
• 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.
• My mother said to me, 'If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope.' Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso.
• Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.
• You mustn't always believe what I say. Questions tempt you to tell lies, particularly when there is no answer.

Selected works by Pablo Picasso in England

Where to find works by Pablo Picasso in England