Pablo Picasso

Pablo Ruiz Picasso According to the record of his baptism, he was named Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Crispín Cipriano (other sources: Crispiniano) de la Santísima Trinidad María de los Remedios Alarcón y Herrera Ruiz Picasso. He was named Juan Nepomuceno after his godfather, a lawyer, friend of the family, called Juan Nepomuceno Blasco y Barroso. He was named Crispín Cipriano after the twin saints celebrated on 25 October, his birth date. Nepomuceno's wife and Picasso's godmother, María de los Remedios Alarcón y Herrera, was also honored in Picasso's baptismal name.}}, , or .}} (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, 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 the anti-war painting ''Guernica'' (1937), a dramatic portrayal of the bombing of Guernica by German and Italian air forces during the Spanish Civil War.

Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years, painting in a naturalistic 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. After 1906, the Fauvist work of the older artist Henri Matisse motivated Picasso to explore more radical styles, beginning a fruitful rivalry between the two artists, who subsequently were often paired by critics as the leaders of modern art.

Picasso's output, especially in his early career, is often periodized. 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 (1904–1906), the African-influenced Period (1907–1909), Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), and Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919), also referred to as the Crystal period. Much of Picasso's work of the late 1910s and early 1920s is in a neoclassical style, and his work in the mid-1920s often has characteristics of Surrealism. His later work often combines elements of his earlier styles.

Exceptionally prolific throughout the course of his long life, Picasso achieved universal renown and immense fortune for his revolutionary artistic accomplishments, and became one of the best-known figures in 20th-century art. Provided by Wikipedia