People: Pablo Picasso

The most famous artist of the twentieth century who profoundly influenced modern art. Born in 1881 in Malaga, Spain, he started painting as a young boy. At the age of 19 he moved to Paris. Upset by the death of a friend, he started his Blue Period in which his figures were painted mainly in tones of blue- images of sadness and loneliness. Later, blue gave way to rose in pictures of acrobats and circus people, brighter in color and mood. He became interested in African sculpture and geometric forms. Along with another artist, George Braque, he went on to develop Cubism which broke its subjects into overlapping planes. Paintings became arrangements of forms rather than representations of what is real. In 1937, in response to the bombing of a Spanish village by Germany, Picasso painted his most famous painting called Guernica Picasso died in France in 1973.