Pablo Picasso was the most influential and successful artist of the 20th century. Painting, sculpture, graphic art, and ceramics were all profoundly and irrevocably affected by his genius.

Picasso was born in the Spanish city of Málaga. His family was middle class and his father was a professor of art at the local school of crafts, curator at the art museum and enjoyed painting Naturalistic paintings of birds and other game.

Picasso showed a passion and a skill for drawing from an early age. From the age of seven, Picasso received formal artistic training from his father in figure drawing and oil painting. Ruiz was a traditional, academic artist and instructor who believed that proper training required disciplined copying of the masters, and drawing the human body from plaster casts and live models. His son became preoccupied with art to the detriment of his class work. José Ruiz Blasco

In 1895, Picasso was traumatized when his seven- year-old sister, Conchita, died of diphtheria. After her death, the family moved to Barcelona, where Ruiz took a position at its School of Fine Arts. Ruiz persuaded the officials at the art academy to allow his son to take an entrance exam for the advanced class. This process often took students a month, but Picasso completed it in a week, and the impressed jury admitted Picasso, who was 13.

Picasso’s father and uncle decided to send the young artist to Madrid’s Royal Academy of San Fernando, the country's foremost art school. At age 16, Picasso disliked formal instruction and quit attending classes soon after enrollment. Madrid, however, held many other attractions. The Prado housed paintings by Diego Velázquez, Francisco Goya, and Francisco Zurbarán. Picasso especially admired the works of El Greco; elements like the elongated limbs, arresting colors, and mystical visages are echoed in Picasso’s later work.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's work had a significant impact on his early paintings, as did the work of Paul Cézanne. Their influence, among others', can be detected in the paintings of Picasso's "blue period" ( ), which was stimulated by his exposure to life and thought in Paris, where he made his home after 1904.

Picasso’s work is often categorized into periods. The Blue Period 1901–1904 is when he painted essentially monochromatic paintings in shades of blue and blue-green, only occasionally warmed by other colors. Picasso made three trips to Paris between 1900 and He finally moved there in This is where he went through what is known now as his blue period. During this time he used mainly different shades of blue and portrayed the seedy parts of town including beggars, alcoholics, and prostitutes.

Femme aux Bras Croisés 1902 Madame Soler, 1905 Blue Period 1901–1904

The Blind Man's Meal, 1903

After Picasso moved to Paris he met Fernande Oliver who influenced the mood of his work from dark and gloomy blues to light and happy reds and pinks which led this period in time to be called the Rose Period. The Actor, 1904 The Rose Period 1905–1907

Family of Saltimbanques, 1905 At this time he painted many pictures of a circus that he visited often during his stay in Paris. Harlequins, circus performers and clowns appear frequently in the Rose Period and will populate Picasso's paintings at various stages through the rest of his long career.

The African-influenced Period 1908–1909 (Black Period) Picasso's African Period, which lasted from 1906 to 1909, was the period when Picasso painted in a style which was strongly influenced by African sculpture. Although Les Demoiselles is seen as the first Cubist work, Picasso continued to develop a style derived from African art before beginning the Analytic Cubism phase of his painting in Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907 Self Portrait, 1907

Analytic Cubism 1909–1912 Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In cubist artworks, objects are broken up, analyzed, and re- assembled in an abstracted form— instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context. Often the surfaces intersect at seemingly random angles, removing a coherent sense of depth. The background and object planes interpenetrate one another to create the shallow ambiguous space, one of cubism's distinct characteristics. Le guitariste, 1910

This style was termed cubism by a critic who described the work as being made of "little cubes". They created this style by breaking down and analyzing a object. The main color scheme was browns and other muddy colors (monochromatic color). Portrait of Wilhelm Uhde (1910)

Girl with a Mandolin, 1910 Portrait of Ambroise Vollard,

Synthetic Cubism 1912–1919 Musiciens aux masques, Synthetic Cubism was the second main movement within Cubism that was developed by Picasso, Braque, Juan Gris and others between 1912 and Synthetic cubism is characterized by the introduction of different textures, surfaces, collage elements, papier collé and a large variety of merged subject matter. It was the beginning of collage materials being introduced as an important ingredient of fine art work.

Whereas Analytic Cubism was an analysis of the subjects (pulling them apart into planes), Synthetic Cubism is more of a pushing of several objects together. Less pure than Analytic Cubism, Synthetic Cubism has fewer planar shifts, and less shading, creating flatter space.

Are we to paint what's on the face, what's inside the face, or what's behind it? – Pablo Picasso

Picasso also created sculpture and prints throughout his long career, and made numerous important contributions to both media. He periodically worked in ceramics, and designed sets, curtains, and interiors for the theater.

Pablo Picasso died at Mougins, France on April, Leaving no will, his death duties to the French state were paid in the form of his works - the core of a collection at the Musée Picasso in Paris.