Happy Birthday, Pablo Picasso!
Pablo Picasso, 1962. Revista Vea y Lea. Argentina. Wikimedia Commons
October is not only the month of Halloween and gloomy weather. It is also the month of the renowned painter and artist Pablo Picasso. The Spanish painter was born on 25 October 1881. You probably know his extraordinary paintings Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) and Guernica (1937). But why not dig deeper? Here are five surprising facts about the brilliant artist.
1) His first word was ‘lapis’ (pencil)
The painter’s very first word was “lapis,” pencil. A talent and passion for art ran in the family: Picasso’s father was also a painter. He started teaching his son how to paint when Picasso was only seven years old. It is said that when Picasso was 13 years old, his father quit painting because he thought his son was already better than him. The artist's first word thus gave a big hint of what his future was going to be filled with.
2) Picasso stole the Mona Lisa? Am I hearing correctly?
When it became known that Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (1503) had been stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris, the town’s rumour mill immediately started churning. Guillaume Apollinaire, a poet and friend of Pablo Picasso, was arrested by the authorities. Picasso was brought in for questioning after being named as a suspect by Apollinaire. Both were later released when the police found out that a security worker at the museum was behind the crime.
3) Only painting?
Picasso’s interest for the Surrealist style brought him to the theater. He wrote Surrealist plays such as Desire Caught by the Tail which was first performed as a reading, featuring philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Picasso, and Albert Camus, who directed the play. The painter also regularly created sculptures, even though his sculptures are not as famous as his paintings.
4) Picasso and Cubism
Portrait photograph of Pablo Picasso, in front of his painting The Aficionado (Kunstmuseum Basel) at Villa les Clochettes, Sorgues, France, summer 1912. RMN-Grand Palais. Wikimedia Commons
Picasso co-founded the modern art movement known as Cubism with his fellow artist and friend Georges Braque. The revolutionary movement was a reaction to the quickly evolving modern environment. Cubist painters rejected traditional figurative art, and instead worked with abstract geometrical figures that brought a new perspective to modern art.
5) World Record!
Pablo Picasso was one of the most prolific artists. According to Guinness World Records, Picasso produced roughly 13,500 paintings and designs, 100,000 prints and engravings, 34,000 book illustrations and 300 sculptures and ceramics. We can say that he was an artist with ten talents on ten fingers!
Angela Hu, Picasso’s Guernica up close. Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, 2011. Wikimedia Commons