Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso, one of the most recognized figures of 20th century art, who co-created such styles as Cubism and Surrealism, was also among most innovative, influential, and prolific artists of all time. He was born Pablo Ruiz Picasso on October 6, 1881, in Malaga, Spain. He was the first child of Jose Ruiz y Blasco and Maria Picasso y Lopez. His father was an artist and professor of art at the School of Fine Arts, and also a curator of museum in Malaga, Spain. Picasso began studying art under his father's tutelage, continued at the Academy of Arts in Madrid for a year, and went on his ingenious explorations of the new horizons.

He went to Paris in 1901 and found the environment conducive for his experiments with new art styles. Gertrude Stein, Guillaume Apollinaire, and André Breton were among his friends and collectors. Constantly updating his style from the Blue Period, to the Rose Period, to the African-influenced Period, to Cubism, to Realism and Surrealism he was a pioneer with a hand in every art movement of the 20th century. He made some softer and neo-classic artworks during his cooperation with the Russian Ballet of Sergei Diaghilev in Paris.

In 1917 Picasso joined the Russian Ballet on tour in Rome, Italy. There he fell in love with Olga Khokhlova, a classical ballerina from the Russian nobility (her father was a General to the Russian Tsar Nickolas II). Picasso painted Olga as a Spanish girl in his painting "Olga Khokhlova in Mantilla" to convince his parents for their blessing, and his idea worked.

Picasso and Olga Khokhlova wed in Paris, in 1918, and had one son, Paolo. After their marriage, Olga's high society lifestyle clashed with Picasso's bohemian manners.

He had one son by wife Olga, a Russian ballerina: Paulo Picasso, born 1919.

Picasso's liaison with Marie-Thérèse Walter produced one daughter: Maya Widmaier Picasso (aka "Maya (Maria de la Concepcion) Picasso"), born 1932. Another liaison with artist Françoise Gilot produced Claude Picasso (born 1947) and Paloma Picasso born 1949.

They separated in 1935, but remained officially married until her death in 1954. Meanwhile, his most famous lovers, Marie Therese Walter and Dora Maar, were also his inspirational models for a series of experimental portraits. Picasso was a pacifist.

His outcry for peace was expressed in large-scale painting Guernica (1937), created after the German bombing of this Spanish city. This powerful composition, showing the brutal inhumanity of war, became his most famous work and turned him into a political celebrity.

A Rose Period Picasso that Gone with the Wind (1939) financier John Hay Whitney had bought for $30,000 in 1950, "Boy With a Pipe," was auctioned off in 2004 for a record $104.2 million, the proceeds left over from the $93-million bid price to fund the charitable Greentree Foundation established by his wife Betsey Cushing Whitney after his death.

In 1940 Picasso applied for French citizenship, but was denied it, and remained Spanish. Protected by his fame, he was untouchable even to the Nazis in the occupied Paris. A skillful self-promoter, he used politics, eccentricity, and provocation as a selling tool. Sarcastic harlequin and dominating minotaur were his personal symbols, frequently used in his artworks. His life turned into a PR campaign, playing with scandals; viciousness to his own children, exaggerated virility and beastly treatment of his women. However, he was forgiven by the public.

Even his membership in the Communist party and his controversial comments about Joseph Stalin, who awarded Picasso the Stalin Prize for Peace in 1950, were ignored by his admirers. His life-long extraordinary artistic dialogue with Henri Matisse took a form of a "visual conversation" and exchange of their paintings with mutual respect. After WWII he returned to "classical" style and created the "Dove of Peace". An innovator and a multi-faceted personality, Picasso dominated the 20th century Western Art, spreading his influence beyond art into many aspects of culture and life. In his several film appearances Picasso always played himself. His lifestyle remained as bohemian and vivacious as it was in his youth.

Picasso died in style while entertaining his guests at a dinner party, on April 8, 1973, in Mouglins, in southeastern France. Picasso's last words were "Drink to me, drink to my health, you know I can't drink any more. " He was interred at Castle Vauvenargues' park, in Vauvenargues, Bouches-du-Rhone, in the South of France.

He is the subject of the songs "Picasso's Last Words (Drink to Me)" by Wings, "Pablo Picasso" by Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers and "Picasso and Me" by Gretchen Peters (which is written from the point of view of Picasso's cat). He is also mentioned in the song "Big Wedge" by former Marillion singer Fish (a UK Top 40 single in 1990) and Jay-Z's "Friend or Foe" from his 1996 debut album "Reasonable Doubt".

Billionaire Casino mogul Steve Wynn purchased "Le Reve", a portrait of Picasso's mistress Marie-Therese Walter, for $48m in 1997. In 2006 Wynn agreed to sell the painting to Billionaire Hedge Fund Mogul Steve Cohen. But later, at a celebratory get-together, Steve Wynn accidentally put his elbow through it. The sale was postponed so that the $45m worth of damage could be repaired, and the painting was eventually sold to Cohen in 2013 at a price of $155m, 16m more than it would have sold for in 2006.

He has had more auction sales than any other artist: as of May 1999 his works had been sold 3,595 times for a total worth of $1.23 billion. His most valuable painting was "Femme aux bras croises" (1902), sold for $55.6 million at Christie's on 8/11/2000, making it the most valuable painting made in the 20th century. More of his paintings--190 of them at last count--have sold for over $1 million than those of any other artist.