Dora Maar (November 22, 1907 – July 16, 1997) was a French photographer, poet and painter, best known for being a lover and muse of Pablo Picasso.

Life[link]

She was born Henriette Theodora Marković in Paris, France. Her father, Josip Marković, was a Croatian architect, famous for his work in South America; her mother, Julie Voisin, was from a Catholic family from Touraine, France.^[1] Dora grew up in Argentina.

Before meeting Picasso, Maar was already known as a photographer. She also painted. She met Picasso in January 1936 on the terrace of the Café les Deux Magots in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris, when she was 29 years old and he 54. The famous poet Paul Éluard, who was with Picasso, had to introduce them. Picasso was attracted by her beauty and self-mutilation (she cut her fingers and table playing "the knife game"; he got her bloody gloves and exhibited them on a shelf in his apartment). She spoke Spanish fluently, so Picasso was even more fascinated. Their relationship lasted nearly nine years.

Maar became the rival of Picasso's blonde mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter, who had a newborn daughter with Picasso, named Maya. Picasso often painted beautiful, sad Dora, who suffered because she was sterile, and called her his "private muse." For him she was the "woman in tears" in many aspects. During their love affair, she suffered from his moods, and hated that in 1943 he had found a new lover, Françoise Gilot. Picasso and Paul Éluard sent Dora to their friend, the psychiatrist Jacques Lacan, who treated her with psychoanalysis.

She made herself better known in the art world with her photographs of the successive stages of the completion of Guernica, which Picasso painted in his workshop on the rue des Grands Augustins, and other photographic portraits of Picasso. Together, she and Picasso studied printing with Man Ray.

Maar kept his paintings for herself until her death in 1997. They were souvenirs of her extraordinary love affair, which made her famous forever. In Paris, still occupied by the Germans, Picasso left to her a drawing from 1915 as a goodbye gift in April 1944; it represents Max Jacob, his close friend who had just died in the transit camp of Drancy after his arrest by the Nazis. He also left to her some still lifes and a house at Ménerbes in Provence.

After Picasso[link]

After her long relationship with Picasso ended, Maar struggled to regain her emotional footing, she was in such a mental state that she cried so much that she needed crying tablets. This was complicated by the sudden death of her best friend, Nusch Éluard, wife of the poet Paul, in 1946. Likewise, her mother had also died unexpectedly in 1941, leaving Maar without family or long-time close friends.

But eventually she returned to her previous social circle, which included famous society hostesses and art patrons such as Marie-Laure de Noailles and Lise Deharme. She also found solace in Roman Catholicism. The author Mary Ann Caws quotes Maar as saying, "After Picasso, God." She spent her last years living between Paris and Provence in the house Picasso had given her.

Although she had other male friends in her life, such as the gay writer James Lord, a close friend who lived with her in the house in Provence in the 1950s, no one replaced Picasso for her.

Maar's poetry is notable for its themes of near-religious meditation. Caws in her 2000 book on Maar quotes several pieces such as one entitled "5 November", thought to have been written in 1970:

"Pure as a lake boredom
I hear its harmony
In the vast cold room
The nuance of light seems eternal
All is simple I admire
the full totality of objects."

Others were more openly religious:

"The soul that still yesterday wept is quiet -- it's exile suspended
a country without art only nature
Memory magnolia pure so far off

I am blind
and made from a bit of earth
But your gaze never leaves me
And your angel keeps me."

By the 1980s she had few friends left, but still wrote poetry and returned to photography. An exhibition of her paintings in 1990 at the Marcel Fleiss gallery was a success, as was another in Valencia, Spain in 1995, just two years before her death. She died 89 years of age in Paris on July 16, 1997. She is buried with her family at Clamart Cemetery in Hauts de Seine.

Maar's first photography exhibition was at the Galerie de Beaune in Paris, in 1937. She had one-woman exhibitions of painting in Paris at Jeanne Bucher (1943) and Pierre Loeb (1945).

After a period of semi-monastic life devoted to mystical experience, began exhibiting her paintings again during the 1950s. Towards the end of her life, she renounced her earlier association with Surrealism, albeit staying involved in the art world through some exchanges with upcoming artists, as she did with Patrice Stellest while he defined the principles of the Trans Nature Art movement.

Photographic career[link]

Maar supported herself in the 1920s and 1930s as a commercial photographer with portraits and advertisements, and pursued street photography and avant-garde experimentation in her spare time. She was prominent in Parisian art and photography circles.

In her photographs, Maar imbued blind beggars and impoverished children with unusual dignity; made distinctively austere Surrealist collages, montages and setup images (a pair of shoes seemingly walking on a beach); and created two haunting works using the ceiling of a cathedral, turned upside down.

She got on film what might be called street Surrealism: a discarded doll, hanging from a nail on a wood fence; a group of tussling children with an extra pair of legs. Her photographic work has a distinctive formal clarity and emotional directness.

Posthumous events[link]

On 3 May 2006, one of Picasso's portraits of her, Dora Maar au Chat ("Dora Maar with Cat") was auctioned at Sotheby's at a closing price of US$95,216,000, making it the world's second most expensive painting ever sold at auction [1]. The winning bidder chose to remain anonymous; however, it was later revealed that he was bidding on behalf of a Russian buyer.

Two Picasso art works depicting Maar were stolen in France in 1999. First, an oil on canvas, "Dora Maar", was stolen from a boat on the French Riviera. The boat's crew was arrested and Lloyds offered a 540,000 euro reward. The painting is currently registered with the FBI's National Stolen Art File[2]^{[dead link]}. The second stolen "Dora Maar" is a bronze sculpture representing her face. It was taken from a public square in Paris on 1 April 1999.

Currently, The Brown Foundation Fellows Program based in Dora Maar's former home in Menerbes, France, provides residencies of one to three months for mid-career professionals in the arts and humanities to concentrate on their fields of expertise.

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• (In Croatian) Mladen Urem. Janko Polić Kamov, Dora Maar i hrvatska avangarda (Janko Polić Kamov, Dora Maar and Croatian Avantgarde). 2006 Rijeka, Croatia. Rival publishing. ISBN 95367000609
• Mary Ann Caws. Dora Maar with & without Picasso. 2000 London. ISBN 0-500-51009-1
• James Lord. Picasso and Dora: A memoir. 1997 New York. ISBN 0-7538-0249-X
• (In French:) Alicia Dujovne Ortiz. Dora Maar : prisonnière du regard. 2003 Paris : Bernard Grasset. 358 p. ISBN 2-246-60791-4
• Mary Ann Caws. Picasso's Weeping Woman The Life and Art of Dora Maar, Bulfinch, 2000, ISBN 0-8212-2693-2
• Donald Goddard. Dora Maar: Photographer, Art Review, New York Art World, 2004.[3]

External links[link]

• Photographs by Dora Maar
• http://home.hccnet.nl/att.leurs/kbd121.html (Dutch)
• New York Times: Mystery Bidder Spends $95 Million on a Picasso
• http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/arttheft/noticerecov.htm
• http://www.museum-security.org/reports/004299.html (report of the two 1999 thefts in France)
• http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSmpid=46997149&GRid=26780352& (Find A Grave memorial for Dora Maar)

v t e Pablo Picasso Periods Blue (1901–1904) · Rose (1904–1906) · African (1907–1909) · Cubism (1910–1919) Lists of works 1889–1900 · 1901–1910 · 1911–1920 · 1921–1930 · 1931–1940 · 1941–1950 · 1951–1960 · 1961–1970 · 1971–1973 Major works The Actor · Boy Leading a Horse · The Charnel House · Chicago Picasso · Don Quixote · Dora Maar au Chat · The Dream and Lie of Franco · Family of Saltimbanques · Femme aux Bras Croisés · Garçon à la pipe · Guernica · Jacqueline · Jeune Fille Endormie · La Lecture · Le Rêve · Les Demoiselles d'Avignon · Les Noces de Pierrette · Maya with Doll · Nude, Green Leaves and Bust · Nude in a Black Armchair · The Old Guitarist · Portrait of Angel Fernández de Soto · Portrait of Suzanne Bloch · Reading the Letter · Sylvette · Tete de femme (Dora Maar) · The Three Dancers · Three Musicians · Vollard Suite · The Weeping Woman · Woman in Hat and Fur Collar Partners Fernande Olivier (1904 to 1911) · Eva Gouel (1912 to her death in 1915) · Olga Khokhlova (married 1918, to her death in 1955, mother of Paulo) · Marie-Thérèse Walter (1927 to 1935, mother of Maya) · Dora Maar (1936 to 1944) · Françoise Gilot (1944 to 1953, mother of Claude and Paloma) · Geneviève Laporte (during the 1950s) · Jacqueline Roque (married 1961 to Picasso's death 1973) Family Paloma Picasso · José Ruiz y Blasco Colleagues and friends Georges Braque · Julio González · Max Jacob · Henri Matisse · Jaime Sabartés Patrons and biographers Gertrude Stein · Etta and Claribel Cone · Douglas Cooper · John Richardson · Daniel Kahnweiler · Ambroise Vollard Museums Château Grimaldi (Antibes) · Museu Picasso (Barcelona) · Musée Picasso (Paris) · Museo Picasso Málaga (Malaga) Films Van Renoir tot Picasso (1948) · Visit to Picasso (1949) · Guernica (1950) · Picasso (1955) · The Mystery of Picasso (1956) · Surviving Picasso (1996) · Picasso: Magic, Sex, Death (2001) See also Fundación Picasso Wikimedia  Picasso at Wiktionary ·  Picasso at Wikibooks ·  Picasso at Wikiquote ·  Picasso at Wikisource ·  Picasso at Commons ·  Picasso at Wikinews

Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso in 1962
Birth name	Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso[1]
Born	(1881-10-25)25 October 1881 Málaga, Spain
Died	8 April 1973(1973-04-08) (aged 91) Mougins, France
Nationality	Spanish
Field	Painting, Drawing, Sculpture, Printmaking, Ceramics
Training	José Ruiz y Blasco (father), Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando
Movement	Cubism
Works	Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) Guernica (1937) The Weeping Woman (1937)

Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso, known as Pablo Picasso (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈpaβlo piˈkaso], 25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973), was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century, he is widely known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, ^[2][3] the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), and Guernica (1937), a portrayal of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.

Picasso, Henri Matisse and Marcel Duchamp are commonly regarded as the three artists who most defined the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century, responsible for significant developments in painting, sculpture, printmaking and ceramics.^[4][5][6][7]

Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years, painting in a realistic manner through his childhood and adolescence. During the first decade of the 20th century his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas. His revolutionary artistic accomplishments brought him universal renown and immense fortune, making him one of the best-known figures in 20th century art.

Early life[link]

Picasso was baptized Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Crispiniano de la Santísima Trinidad, a series of names honoring various saints and relatives.^[8] Added to these were Ruiz and Picasso, for his father and mother, respectively, as per Spanish law. Born in the city of Málaga in the Andalusian region of Spain, he was the first child of Don José Ruiz y Blasco (1838–1913) and María Picasso y López.^[9] Picasso’s family was middle-class. His father was a painter who specialized in naturalistic depictions of birds and other game. For most of his life Ruiz was a professor of art at the School of Crafts and a curator of a local museum. Ruiz’s ancestors were minor aristocrats.

The house where Picasso was born, in Málaga

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".^[10] 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 classwork.

The family moved to A Coruña in 1891, where his father became a professor at the School of Fine Arts. They stayed almost four years. On one occasion the father found his son painting over his unfinished sketch of a pigeon. Observing the precision of his son’s technique, an Apocrypha story relates, Ruiz felt that the thirteen-year-old Picasso had surpassed him, and vowed to give up painting,^[11] though paintings by him exist from later years.

In 1895, Picasso was traumatized when his seven-year-old sister, Conchita, died of diphtheria.^[12] After her death, the family moved to Barcelona, where Ruiz took a position at its School of Fine Arts. Picasso thrived in the city, regarding it in times of sadness or nostalgia as his true home.^[13] Ruiz persuaded the officials at the 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 him, at just 13. The student lacked discipline but made friendships that would affect him in later life. His father rented him a small room close to home so he could work alone, yet he checked up on him numerous times a day, judging his drawings. The two argued frequently.

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.^[13] At age 16, Picasso set off for the first time on his own, but he 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 his later work.

Career beginnings[link]

Picasso made his first trip to Paris in 1900, then the art capital of Europe. There, he met his first Parisian friend, the journalist and poet Max Jacob, who helped Picasso learn the language and its literature. Soon they shared an apartment; Max slept at night while Picasso slept during the day and worked at night. These were times of severe poverty, cold, and desperation. Much of his work was burned to keep the small room warm. During the first five months of 1901, Picasso lived in Madrid, where he and his anarchist friend Francisco de Asís Soler founded the magazine Arte Joven (Young Art), which published five issues. Soler solicited articles and Picasso illustrated the journal, mostly contributing grim cartoons depicting and sympathizing with the state of the poor. The first issue was published on 31 March 1901, by which time the artist had started to sign his work simply Picasso, while before he had signed Pablo Ruiz y Picasso.^[15]

By 1905 Picasso became a favorite of the American art collectors Leo and Gertrude Stein. Their older brother Michael Stein and his wife Sarah also became collectors of his work. Picasso painted portraits of both Gertrude Stein and her nephew Allan Stein.^[16] Gertrude Stein became Picasso's principal patron, acquiring his drawings and paintings and exhibiting them in her informal Salon at her home in Paris.^[17] At one of her gatherings in 1905, he met Henri Matisse, who was to become a lifelong friend and rival. The Steins introduced him to Claribel Cone and her sister Etta who were American art collectors; they also began to acquire Picasso and Matisse's paintings. Eventually Leo Stein moved to Italy, and Michael and Sarah Stein became patrons of Matisse; while Gertrude Stein continued to collect Picasso.^[18]

In 1907 Picasso joined an art gallery that had recently been opened in Paris by Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. Kahnweiler was a German art historian, art collector who became one of the premier French art dealers of the 20th century. He was among the first champions of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and the Cubism that they jointly developed. Kahnweiler promoted burgeoning artists such as André Derain, Kees Van Dongen, Fernand Léger, Juan Gris, Maurice de Vlaminck and several others who had come from all over the globe to live and work in Montparnasse at the time.^[19]

In Paris, Picasso entertained a distinguished coterie of friends in the Montmartre and Montparnasse quarters, including André Breton, poet Guillaume Apollinaire, writer Alfred Jarry, and Gertrude Stein. Apollinaire was arrested on suspicion of stealing the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911. Apollinaire pointed to his friend Picasso, who was also brought in for questioning, but both were later exonerated.^[20]

Personal life[link]

In the early 20th century, Picasso divided his time between Barcelona and Paris. In 1904, in the middle of a storm, he met Fernande Olivier, a Bohemian artist who became his mistress.^[12] Olivier appears in many of his Rose period paintings. After acquiring some fame and fortune, Picasso left Olivier for Marcelle Humbert, whom he called Eva Gouel. Picasso included declarations of his love for Eva in many Cubist works. Picasso was devastated by her premature death from illness at the age of 30 in 1915.^[21]

After World War I, Picasso made a number of important relationships with figures associated with Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Among his friends during this period were Jean Cocteau, Jean Hugo, Juan Gris and others. In the summer of 1918, Picasso married Olga Khokhlova, a ballerina with Sergei Diaghilev’s troupe, for whom Picasso was designing a ballet, Parade, in Rome; and they spent their honeymoon in the villa near Biarritz of the glamorous Chilean art patron Eugenia Errázuriz. Khokhlova introduced Picasso to high society, formal dinner parties, and all the social niceties attendant on the life of the rich in 1920s Paris. The two had a son, Paulo, ^[22] who would grow up to be a dissolute motorcycle racer and chauffeur to his father. Khokhlova’s insistence on social propriety clashed with Picasso’s bohemian tendencies and the two lived in a state of constant conflict. During the same period that Picasso collaborated with Diaghilev’s troup, he and Igor Stravinsky collaborated on Pulcinella in 1920. Picasso took the opportunity to make several drawings of the composer.

In 1927 Picasso met 17-year-old Marie-Thérèse Walter and began a secret affair with her. Picasso’s marriage to Khokhlova soon ended in separation rather than divorce, as French law required an even division of property in the case of divorce, and Picasso did not want Khokhlova to have half his wealth. The two remained legally married until Khokhlova’s death in 1955. Picasso carried on a long-standing affair with Marie-Thérèse Walter and fathered a daughter with her, named Maya. Marie-Thérèse lived in the vain hope that Picasso would one day marry her, and hanged herself four years after Picasso’s death. Throughout his life Picasso maintained a number of mistresses in addition to his wife or primary partner. Picasso was married twice and had four children by three women.

The photographer and painter Dora Maar was also a constant companion and lover of Picasso. The two were closest in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and it was Maar who documented the painting of Guernica.

War years and beyond[link]

During the Second World War, Picasso remained in Paris while the Germans occupied the city. Picasso’s artistic style did not fit the Nazi ideal of art, so he did not exhibit during this time. Retreating to his studio, he continued to paint, producing works such as the Still Life with Guitar (1942) and The Charnel House (1944–48).^[23] Although the Germans outlawed bronze casting in Paris, Picasso continued regardless, using bronze smuggled to him by the French Resistance.^[24]

Around this time, Picasso took up writing as an alternative outlet. Between 1935 and 1959 he wrote over 300 poems. Largely untitled except for a date and sometimes the location of where it was written (for example "Paris 16 May 1936"), these works were gustatory, erotic and at times scatological, as were his two full-length plays Desire Caught by the Tail (1941) and The Four Little Girls (1949).^[25]

In 1944, after the liberation of Paris, Picasso, then 63 years old, began a romantic relationship with a young art student named Françoise Gilot. She was 40 years younger than he was. Picasso grew tired of his mistress Dora Maar; Picasso and Gilot began to live together. Eventually they had two children: Claude, born in 1947 and Paloma, born in 1949. In her 1964 book Life with Picasso,^[26] Gilot describes his abusive treatment and myriad infidelities which led her to leave him, taking the children with her. This was a severe blow to Picasso.

Picasso had affairs with women of an even greater age disparity than his and Gilot's. While still involved with Gilot, in 1951 Picasso had a six-week affair with Geneviève Laporte, who was four years younger than Gilot. Eventually, as evident in his work, Picasso began to come to terms with his advancing age and his waning attraction to young women.^{[citation needed]} By his 70s, many paintings, ink drawings and prints have as their theme an old, grotesque dwarf as the doting lover of a beautiful young model. Jacqueline Roque (1927–1986) worked at the Madoura Pottery in Vallauris on the French Riviera, where Picasso made and painted ceramics. She became his lover, and then his second wife in 1961. The two were together for the remainder of Picasso’s life.

His marriage to Roque was also a means of revenge against Gilot; with Picasso’s encouragement, Gilot had divorced her then husband, Luc Simon, with the plan to finally actually marry Picasso to secure the rights of her children as Picasso's legitimate heirs. However, Picasso had already secretly married Roque, after Gilot had filed for divorce. This strained his relationship with Claude and Paloma.

By this time, Picasso had constructed a huge Gothic home, and could afford large villas in the south of France, such as Mas Notre-Dame-de-Vie on the outskirts of Mougins, and in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. He was an international celebrity, with often as much interest in his personal life as his art.

In addition to his artistic accomplishments, Picasso made a few film appearances, always as himself, including a cameo in Jean Cocteau’s Testament of Orpheus. In 1955 he helped make the film Le Mystère Picasso (The Mystery of Picasso) directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot.

Death[link]

Pablo Picasso died on 8 April 1973 in Mougins, France, while he and his wife Jacqueline entertained friends for dinner. His final words were "Drink to me, drink to my health, you know I can't drink any more."^[27] 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.^[28] Devastated and lonely after the death of Picasso, Jacqueline Roque took her own life by gunshot in 1986 when she was 59 years old.^[29]

Children[link]

• Paulo (4 February 1921 – 5 June 1975) (Born Paul Joseph Picasso) — with Olga Khokhlova
• Maya (5 September 1935 – ) (Born Maria de la Concepcion Picasso) — with Marie-Thérèse Walter
• Claude (15 May 1947 –) (Born Claude Pierre Pablo Picasso) ) — with Françoise Gilot
• Paloma (19 April 1949 – ) (Born Anne Paloma Picasso) — with Françoise Gilot

Political views[link]

Aside from the several anti-war paintings that he created, Picasso remained personally neutral during World War I, the Spanish Civil War, and World War II, refusing to join the armed forces for any side or country. At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1937, Picasso was already in his late fifties. He was even older at the onset of World War II, and could not be expected to take up arms in those conflicts. As a Spanish citizen living in France, Picasso was under no compulsion to fight against the invading Germans in either World War. In the Spanish Civil War, service for Spaniards living abroad was optional and would have involved a voluntary return to the country to join either side. While Picasso expressed anger and condemnation of Francisco Franco and fascists through his art, he did not take up arms against them. He also remained aloof from the Catalan independence movement during his youth despite expressing general support and being friendly with activists within it.

In 1944 Picasso joined the French Communist Party, attended an international peace conference in Poland, and in 1950 received the Stalin Peace Prize from the Soviet government,^[30] But party criticism of a portrait of Stalin as insufficiently realistic cooled Picasso’s interest in Soviet politics, though he remained a loyal member of the Communist Party until his death. In a 1945 interview with Jerome Seckler, Picasso stated: "I am a Communist and my painting is Communist painting. ... But if I were a shoemaker, Royalist or Communist or anything else, I would not necessarily hammer my shoes in a special way to show my politics."^[31] His Communist militancy, common among continental intellectuals and artists at the time although it was officially banned in Francoist Spain, has long been the subject of some controversy; a notable source or demonstration thereof was a quote commonly attributed to Salvador Dalí (with whom Picasso had a rather strained relationship^[32]):

Picasso es pintor, yo también; [...] Picasso es español, yo también; Picasso es comunista, yo tampoco.

(Picasso is a painter, so am I; [...] Picasso is a Spaniard, so am I; Picasso is a communist, neither am I.)^{[33][34][35][36][37][38]}

In the late 1940s his old friend the surrealist poet and Trotskyist^[39] and anti-Stalinist André Breton was more blunt; refusing to shake hands with Picasso, he told him: "I don't approve of your joining the Communist Party nor with the stand you have taken concerning the purges of the intellectuals after the Liberation".^[40]

In 1962, he received the Lenin Peace Prize.^[41] Biographer and art critic John Berger felt his talents as an artist were "wasted" by the communists.^[42]

According to Jean Cocteau's diaries, Picasso once said to him in reference to the communists: "I have joined a family, and like all families, it's full of shit".^[43]

He was against the intervention of the United Nations and the United States^[44] in the Korean War and he depicted it in Massacre in Korea.

Art[link]

Picasso’s work is often categorized into periods. While the names of many of his later periods are debated, the most commonly accepted periods in his work are the Blue Period (1901–1904), the Rose Period (1905–1907), the African-influenced Period (1908–1909), Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), and Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919).

In 1939–40 the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, under its director Alfred Barr, a Picasso enthusiast, held a major and highly successful retrospective of his principal works up until that time. This exhibition lionized the artist, brought into full public view in America the scope of his artistry, and resulted in a reinterpretation of his work by contemporary art historians and scholars.^[46]

Before 1901[link]

Picasso’s training under his father began before 1890. His progress can be traced in the collection of early works now held by the Museu Picasso in Barcelona, which provides one of the most comprehensive records extant of any major artist’s beginnings.^[47] During 1893 the juvenile quality of his earliest work falls away, and by 1894 his career as a painter can be said to have begun.^[48] The academic realism apparent in the works of the mid-1890s is well displayed in The First Communion (1896), a large composition that depicts his sister, Lola. In the same year, at the age of 14, he painted Portrait of Aunt Pepa, a vigorous and dramatic portrait that Juan-Eduardo Cirlot has called "without a doubt one of the greatest in the whole history of Spanish painting."^[49]

In 1897 his realism became tinged with Symbolist influence, in a series of landscape paintings rendered in non naturalistic violet and green tones. What some call his Modernist period (1899–1900) followed. His exposure to the work of Rossetti, Steinlen, Toulouse-Lautrec and Edvard Munch, combined with his admiration for favorite old masters such as El Greco, led Picasso to a personal version of modernism in his works of this period.^[50]

Blue Period[link]

Picasso’s Blue Period (1901–1904) consists of somber paintings rendered in shades of blue and blue-green, only occasionally warmed by other colors. This period’s starting point is uncertain; it may have begun in Spain in the spring of 1901, or in Paris in the second half of the year.^[51] Many paintings of gaunt mothers with children date from this period. In his austere use of color and sometimes doleful subject matter—prostitutes and beggars are frequent subjects—Picasso was influenced by a trip through Spain and by the suicide of his friend Carlos Casagemas. Starting in autumn of 1901 he painted several posthumous portraits of Casagemas, culminating in the gloomy allegorical painting La Vie (1903),^[52] now in the Cleveland Museum of Art.^[53]

The same mood pervades the well-known etching The Frugal Repast (1904),^[54] which depicts a blind man and a sighted woman, both emaciated, seated at a nearly bare table. Blindness is a recurrent theme in Picasso’s works of this period, also represented in The Blindman’s Meal (1903, the Metropolitan Museum of Art) and in the portrait of Celestina (1903). Other works include Portrait of Soler and Portrait of Suzanne Bloch‎.

Rose Period[link]

The Rose Period (1904–1906)^[55] is characterized by a more cheery style with orange and pink colors, and featuring many circus people, acrobats and harlequins known in France as saltimbanques. The harlequin, a comedic character usually depicted in checkered patterned clothing, became a personal symbol for Picasso. Picasso met Fernande Olivier, a model for sculptors and artists, in Paris in 1904, and many of these paintings are influenced by his warm relationship with her, in addition to his increased exposure to French painting. The generally upbeat and optimistic mood of paintings in this period is reminiscent of the 1899–1901 period (i.e. just prior to the Blue Period) and 1904 can be considered a transition year between the two periods.

African-influenced Period[link]

Picasso’s African-influenced Period (1907–1909) begins with the two figures on the right in his painting, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, which were inspired by African artifacts. Formal ideas developed during this period lead directly into the Cubist period that follows.

Cubism[link]

Analytic cubism (1909–1912) is a style of painting Picasso developed along with Georges Braque using monochrome brownish and neutral colors. Both artists took apart objects and "analyzed" them in terms of their shapes. Picasso and Braque’s paintings at this time have many similarities. Synthetic cubism (1912–1919) was a further development of the genre, in which cut paper fragments—often wallpaper or portions of newspaper pages—were pasted into compositions, marking the first use of collage in fine art.

Classicism and surrealism[link]

In the period following the upheaval of World War I, Picasso produced work in a neoclassical style. This "return to order" is evident in the work of many European artists in the 1920s, including André Derain, Giorgio de Chirico, Gino Severini, the artists of the New Objectivity movement and of the Novecento Italiano movement. Picasso’s paintings and drawings from this period frequently recall the work of Raphael and Ingres.

During the 1930s, the minotaur replaced the harlequin as a common motif in his work. His use of the minotaur came partly from his contact with the surrealists, who often used it as their symbol, and it appears in Picasso’s Guernica. The minotaur and Picasso's mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter are heavily featured in his celebrated Vollard Suite of etchings. ^[56]

Arguably Picasso's most famous work is his depiction of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War—Guernica. This large canvas embodies for many the inhumanity, brutality and hopelessness of war. Asked to explain its symbolism, Picasso said, "It isn't up to the painter to define the symbols. Otherwise it would be better if he wrote them out in so many words! The public who look at the picture must interpret the symbols as they understand them."^[57][58]

Guernica hung in New York’s Museum of Modern Art for many years. In 1981 Guernica was returned to Spain and exhibited at the Casón del Buen Retiro. In 1992 the painting hung in Madrid’s Reina Sofía Museum when it opened.

Later works[link]

The Chicago Picasso a 50' high public Cubist sculpture. Donated by Picasso to the people of Chicago

Picasso was one of 250 sculptors who exhibited in the 3rd Sculpture International held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in mid-1949. In the 1950s, Picasso’s style changed once again, as he took to producing reinterpretations of the art of the great masters. He made a series of works based on Velazquez’s painting of Las Meninas. He also based paintings on works by Goya, Poussin, Manet, Courbet and Delacroix.

He was commissioned to make a maquette for a huge 50-foot (15 m)-high public sculpture to be built in Chicago, known usually as the Chicago Picasso. He approached the project with a great deal of enthusiasm, designing a sculpture which was ambiguous and somewhat controversial. What the figure represents is not known; it could be a bird, a horse, a woman or a totally abstract shape. The sculpture, one of the most recognizable landmarks in downtown Chicago, was unveiled in 1967. Picasso refused to be paid $100,000 for it, donating it to the people of the city.

Picasso’s final works were a mixture of styles, his means of expression in constant flux until the end of his life. Devoting his full energies to his work, Picasso became more daring, his works more colorful and expressive, and from 1968 through 1971 he produced a torrent of paintings and hundreds of copperplate etchings. At the time these works were dismissed by most as pornographic fantasies of an impotent old man or the slapdash works of an artist who was past his prime. Only later, after Picasso’s death, when the rest of the art world had moved on from abstract expressionism, did the critical community come to see that Picasso had already discovered neo-expressionism and was, as so often before, ahead of his time.

Postage stamp, USSR, 1973. Picasso has been honored on stamps worldwide.

Commemoration and legacy[link]

Picasso sculpture in Halmstad

Picasso was exceptionally prolific throughout his long lifetime. The total number of artworks he produced has been estimated at 50,000, comprising 1,885 paintings; 1,228 sculptures; 2,880 ceramics, roughly 12,000 drawings, many thousands of prints, and numerous tapestries and rugs.^[59] At the time of his death many of his paintings were in his possession, as he had kept off the art market what he did not need to sell. In addition, Picasso had a considerable collection of the work of other famous artists, some his contemporaries, such as Henri Matisse, with whom he had exchanged works. Since Picasso left no will, his death duties (estate tax) to the French state were paid in the form of his works and others from his collection. These works form the core of the immense and representative collection of the Musée Picasso in Paris. In 2003, relatives of Picasso inaugurated a museum dedicated to him in his birthplace, Málaga, Spain, the Museo Picasso Málaga.

The Museu Picasso in Barcelona features many of his early works, created while he was living in Spain, including many rarely seen works which reveal his firm grounding in classical techniques. The museum also holds many precise and detailed figure studies done in his youth under his father’s tutelage, as well as the extensive collection of Jaime Sabartés, his close friend and personal secretary.

Several paintings by Picasso rank among the most expensive paintings in the world. Garçon à la pipe sold for US$104 million at Sotheby's on 4 May 2004, establishing a new price record. Dora Maar au Chat sold for US$95.2 million at Sotheby’s on 3 May 2006.^[60] On 4 May 2010, Nude, Green Leaves and Bust was sold at Christie's for $106.5 million. The 1932 work, which depicts Picasso's mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter reclining and as a bust, was in the personal collection of Los Angeles philanthropist Frances Lasker Brody, who died in November 2009. Christie's won the rights to auction the collection against London-based Sotheby's. The collection as a whole was valued at over $150 million, while the work was originally expected to earn $80 million at auction.^[61] There were more than half a dozen bidders, while the winning bid was taken via telephone.^[62][63] The previous auction record ($104.3 million) was set in February 2010, by Alberto Giacometti's Walking Man I.^[64]

As of 2004, Picasso remains the top ranked artist (based on sales of his works at auctions) according to the Art Market Trends report.^[65] More of his paintings have been stolen than those by any other artist;^[66] the Art Loss Register has 550 of his works listed as missing.^[67]

The Picasso Administration functions as his official Estate. The U.S. copyright representative for the Picasso Administration is the Artists Rights Society.^[68]

In the 1996 movie Surviving Picasso, Picasso is portrayed by actor Anthony Hopkins.

Recent major exhibitions[link]

Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris, an exhibition of 150 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints and photographs from the Musée National Picasso in Paris. The exhibit touring schedule includes:

• 8 October 2010 – 17 January 2011, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, USA.
• 19 February 2011 – 15 May 2011, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia, USA.
• 11 June 2011 – 9 October 2011, M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, California, USA.^[69]
• 12 November 2011 – 25 March 2012, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. ^[70]
• 28 April 2012 – 26 August 2012, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

See also[link]

• Pierre Le Guennec

Notes[link]