Picasso personal biography. Brief biography of Pablo Picasso. Pablo Picasso: works of the “pink” period

Pablo Picasso (full namePablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisima Trinidad Martir Patricio Ruiz and Picasso) – spanish artist, sculptor, graphic artist, theater artist, ceramist and designer.

He said that he depicts the world not as he sees it, but as he imagines it. This is much more valuable, this is the highest creativity. His works are recognized as the most sought after and turned out to be the most expensive in the world.

short biography

Pablo Ruiz Picasso was born October 25, 1881 in Malaga, Spain. Pablo was the son of an art teacher Jose Ruiz, paints and brushes have accompanied him since childhood.

Pablo began to make clear pencil sketches very early. Life in the south of Spain, in the colorful ancient Malaga, where bullfights gathered almost all the city’s inhabitants, the bright colors of nature left their mark on his work.

The beginning of creativity

My first oil painting on wood "Picador" Picasso painted it at the age of 8, dedicating it to a bullfight. He never parted with her - she was his talisman. And in general, if he liked some thing, he became its slave, for example, he wore out his favorite shirts to holes. He was a dark-eyed, stocky, impulsive boy in a southern way, overly ambitious and very superstitious.

One day, a father asked his 12-year-old son to complete a picture with pigeons. Picasso was so carried away that he created his own painting. When her father saw her, he froze in surprise. It took him a long time to come to his senses, but then I gave my son a palette and paints and never took them up again, leaving painting behind.

Study and first successes

When the family moved to Barcelona in 1894, Pablo went to school fine arts. He began to sign his works with his mother's last name - Picasso. In 1897 in Madrid he competed for entry into the San Fernando Academy. That’s when the young man felt like a real artist.

Much of painting came easy to him; he painted quickly. Communicating with his colleagues, young artists, and comparing his paintings with others, he saw that his work was brighter, more colorful, and more interesting. So gradually the realization of his exclusivity came to him.

But he understood that the artist’s path to the pinnacle of fame is difficult and long. Here his ambition and desire to conquer Olympus came in handy at all costs. He subordinated his life to one idea, showed dedication and self-discipline, taking on any work that allowed him to create freely.

Trip to France

In 1900, Picasso and a friend went to Paris- talented artists gathered there, new trends in art were born, the impressionists created there. There he worked hard and studied French. A year later he already exhibited his works in the gallery famous collector Vollar.

At this time, he was greatly impressed by the suicide of a friend. Unwittingly, a “blue” period emerged in his work, when he wrote gloomy pictures, whose heroes were beggars, blind people, alcoholics, prostitutes “Absinthe Lover”, “Beggar with a Boy”.

The elongated figures in his paintings were reminiscent of the style of the Spaniard El Greco. But over time, the “blue” period gave way to the “pink” - this is how his famous "Girl on the Ball".

The Birth of Cubism

Since 1904, Picasso settled in Montmartre, where he worked on the painting "Family of an acrobat with a monkey". In 1907 he met the artist Georges Braque. Soon they moved away from naturalism together, inventing a new form of painting - cubism.

Angular volumes, geometric figures, fragments of still lifes and faces in which it is difficult to discern something human fill his canvases (“Portrait of Fernand Olivier”, “Factory of Hort de Ebro”).

After the First World War, Cubism gradually began to disappear from Picasso's works. He collaborated with the Russian ballet, making sets and costumes for productions.

At this time he met a Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova, who became his wife in 1918, and in 1921 their son Paul was born. Picasso was still painting his cubist still lifes, but had already become involved with graphics, creating cycles of paintings for Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Aristophanes’ Lysistrata.

Creativity during the war

During the Spanish Civil War, Picasso, an opponent of Franco, supporting the Republicans, painted a series of aquatints in 1937 "The Dreams and Lies of General Franco". After the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica by German and Italian aircraft, after the loss of life and destruction, Picasso created an artistic monument to this tragedy.

On a huge canvas, in his typical expressive manner, he embodied everything - grief, suffering of people, animals, destroyed buildings.

With this picture he reflected his fear of an unknown force, warning everyone that the civil war in Spain could spread to Europe.

During the years of the German occupation, he remained in Paris and did not stop his work, painting portraits and still lifes, which reflected the tragedy and hopelessness of life under the fascist regime. He hated the war, hated Hitler, and in 1944 became a member of the French Communist Party.

But this was a purely external adherence to the ideals of Marx: he did not paint ideological paintings, and did not obey the laws and charters of the party. Written by him "Dove of peace" with a twig in its beak became a symbol of liberation from fascism.

Picasso - ceramics

In 1947, Picasso became interested in craft and with his own hands at the factory he made decorative plates, dishes, jugs, figurines, but soon he got tired of this hobby, and he moved on to portraits.

In recent years, Picasso wrote in different styles, imitated the impressionists. Before his death, he admitted that most of all he liked Modigliani's paintings.

Critics of painting noted: “ Not everything in his work is of equal value, but all his works are very highly valued.".

Pablo Picasso died April 8, 1973 at the age of 91 in Mougins, France. He was buried next to his castle Vauvenart.

Studies Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando (in Madrid for one year) Style cubism, surrealism, post-impressionism Awards Awards Website picasso.fr Signature Works on Wikimedia Commons

According to expert estimates, Picasso is the most “expensive” artist in the world: in 2008, official sales of his works alone amounted to $262 million. Picasso's painting "Algerian Women" (French: Les Femmes d "Algers), sold in the spring of 2015 in New York for $179 million, became the most expensive painting ever sold at auction.

According to a survey of 1.4 million readers conducted by the newspaper The Times in 2009, Picasso - best artist among those who lived over the past 100 years. Also, his paintings rank first in “popularity” among kidnappers.

Biography

The most productive painter in the history of humanity.

He also became the most successful artist, earning more than a billion dollars in his life.

He became the founder of modern avant-garde art, starting his journey with realistic painting, discovering cubism and paying tribute to surrealism.

Great spanish painter, founder of Cubism. For my long life(92 years old), the artist created such a huge number of paintings, engravings, sculptures, ceramic miniatures that it cannot be accurately counted. According to various sources, Picasso's heritage ranges from 14 to 80 thousand works of art.

Picasso is unique. He is fundamentally alone, for the lot of a genius is loneliness.

On October 25, 1881, a joyful event occurred in the family of Jose Ruiz Blasco and Maria Picasso Lopez. Their first-born was born, a boy, who was named, according to the Spanish tradition, long and ornate - Pablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Crispignano de la Santisima Trinidad Ruiz and Picasso. Or simply Pablo.

The pregnancy was difficult - thin Maria could barely bear the baby. And the birth was completely difficult. The boy was born dead...

That's what the doctor, Jose Salvador Ruiz's older brother, thought. He accepted the baby, examined him and immediately realized that it was a failure. The boy was not breathing. The doctor spanked him and turned him upside down. Nothing helped. Doctor Salvador hinted with his eyes to the obstetrician to take away the dead child and lit a cigarette. A cloud of gray cigar smoke enveloped the baby's blue face. He tensed convulsively and screamed.

It happened small miracle. The stillborn child turned out to be alive.

The house in Malaga's Merced Square, where Picasso was born, now houses the artist's house-museum and a foundation bearing his name.

His father was an art teacher at the Malaga art school and was also the curator of the local Art Museum.

After Malaga, Jose moved with his family to the town of La Coruña and got a place at the school of fine arts, teaching children painting. He became the first and, perhaps, main teacher of his brilliant son, giving humanity the most outstanding artist of the 20th century.

We know little about Picasso's mother.

An interesting fact is that Mother Maria lived to see her son’s triumph.

Three years after the birth of her first child, Maria gave birth to a girl, Lola, and three years later, the youngest, Conchita.

Picasso was a very spoiled boy.

He was allowed to do everything positively, but he almost died in the first minutes of his life.

At the age of seven, the boy was sent to a regular high school, but he studied disgustingly. Of course, he learned to read and count, but he wrote poorly and with errors (this remained for the rest of his life). But he was not interested in anything other than drawing. He was kept at school only out of respect for his father.

Even before school, his father began to let him into his workshop. Gave me pencils and paper.

José was pleased to note that his son had an innate sense of form. He had a fantastic memory.

At the age of eight, the child began to draw on his own. What the father took weeks to complete, the son managed to complete in two hours.

The first painting painted by Pablo has survived to this day. Picasso never parted with this canvas, painted on a small wooden board with his father’s paints. This is a Picador from 1889.

Pablo Picasso – “Picador” 1889

In 1894, his father took Pablo from school and transferred the boy to his lyceum - a school of fine arts in the same La Coruña.

If Pablo did not have a single good grade at a regular school, then at his father’s school he did not have a single bad one. He studied not just well, but brilliantly.

Barcelona… Catalonia

In the summer of 1895, the Ruiz family moved to the capital of Catalonia. Pablo was only 13 years old. The father wanted his son to study at the Barcelona Academy of Arts. Pablo, still just a boy, submitted documents as an applicant. And immediately received a refusal. Pablo was four years younger than the first-year students. My father had to look for old acquaintances. Out of respect for this distinguished man selection committee The Barcelona Academy decided to allow the boy to participate in the entrance exams.

In just a week, Pablo painted several paintings and completed the commission’s assignment - he painted several graphic works in the classical style. When he took out and unfolded these sheets in front of the painting professors, the members of the commission were speechless with surprise. The decision was unanimous. The boy was accepted into the Academy. And immediately to the senior year. He did not need to learn to draw - a fully formed professional artist sat in front of the commission.

The name “Pablo Picasso” appeared precisely during his studies at the Barcelona Academy. Pablo signed his first works own name– Ruiz Blesko. But then a problem arose - the young man did not want his paintings to be confused with the paintings of his father Jose Ruiz Blasco. And he took his mother’s last name – Picasso. And this was also a tribute to respect and love for Mother Mary.

Picasso never spoke about his mother. But he loved and respected his mother very much. He painted his father as a doctor in the painting “Knowledge and Mercy.” Portrait of Mother – painting “portrait of the artist’s mother”, 1896.

But the painting “Lola, Picasso’s sister” is of even greater interest. It was painted in 1899, when Pablo was under the influence of the Impressionists.

In the summer of 1897, changes came to the family of José Ruiz Blasco. An important letter arrived from Malaga - the authorities again decided to open the Art Museum and invited the authoritative person José Ruiz to the position of its director. In 1897 in June. Pablo completed his studies at the Academy and received a diploma professional artist. And after that the family set off.

Picasso did not like Malaga. For him, Malaga was like a provincial horror hole. He wanted to study. Then at the family council, in which his uncle also participated, it was decided that Pablo would go to Madrid to try to enter the most prestigious art school countries - to the Academy of San Fernando. Uncle Salvador volunteered to finance his nephew’s education.

He entered the San Fernando Academy without much difficulty. Picasso was simply beyond competition. At first, he received good money from his uncle. The reluctance to learn what Pablo already knew without lessons from professors led to the fact that after a few months he dropped out of school. The receipt of money from his uncle immediately stopped, and difficult times came for Pablo. He was 17 years old at the time, and by the spring of 1898 he decided to go to Paris.

Paris amazed him. It became clear that we had to live here. But without money he could not stay in Paris for long and in June 1898 Pablo returned to Barcelona.

Here he managed to rent a small workshop in old Barcelona, ​​painted several paintings and was even able to sell them. But this could not continue for long. And again I wanted to return to Paris. and even convinced his friends, the artists Carlos Casagemas and Jaime Sabartes, to go with him.

In Barcelona, ​​Pablo often visited the Santa Creu hospital for the poor, where prostitutes were treated. His friend worked here. Putting it on white robe. Picasso sat for hours during examinations, quickly making pencil sketches in a notebook. These sketches will later turn into paintings.

Eventually Picasso moved to Paris.

His father saw him off at the Barcelona train station. As a farewell, the son gave his father his self-portrait, on which he wrote “I am the king!” on top.

Life in Paris was poor and hungry. But all the museums of Paris were at Picasso’s service. Then he became interested in the work of the impressionists - Delacroix, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh, Gauguin.

He became interested in the art of the Phoenicians and ancient Egyptians, Japanese prints and Gothic sculpture.

In Paris, he and his friends had a different life. Available women, drunken conversations with friends past midnight, weeks without bread and most importantly OPIUM.

The sobering happened in one moment. One morning he went into the next room where his friend Casagemas lived. Carlos was lying on the bed with his arms spread out to his sides. A revolver lay nearby. Carlos was dead. It later turned out that the cause of suicide was drug withdrawal.

Picasso's shock was so great that he immediately abandoned his passion for opium and never returned to drugs. The death of a friend turned Picasso's life upside down. After living in Paris for two years, he returned to Barcelona.

Cheerful, temperamental, seething with cheerful energy, Pablo suddenly turned into a thoughtful melancholic. The death of a friend made him think about the meaning of life. In a self-portrait from 1901, he is looking at us pale man with tired eyes. Pictures of this period - depression, loss of strength everywhere, you see these tired eyes everywhere.

Picasso himself called this period blue - “the color of all colors.” On the blue background of death bright colors Picasso paints life. For two years spent in Barcelona, ​​he worked at an easel. I almost forgot my youthful trips to brothels.

“The Ironer” was painted by Picasso in 1904. A tired, fragile woman bent over an ironing board. Weak thin hands. This picture is a hymn to the hopelessness of life.

He reached the pinnacle of excellence in very early age. But he continued to search and experiment. At 25, he was still an aspiring artist.

One of the striking paintings of the “Blue Period” is “Life” of 1903. Picasso himself did not like this painting, considered it unfinished and found it too similar to the works of El Greco - but Pablo did not recognize secondary art. The picture shows three times, three periods of life - past, present and future.

In January 1904, Picasso again went to Paris. This time I am determined to gain a foothold here by any means necessary. And under no circumstances should he return to Spain until he achieves success in the capital of France.

He was close to his “Rose Period”.

One of his Parisian friends was Ambroise Vollard. Having organized the first exhibition of Pablo’s works in 1901, this man soon became a “guardian angel” for Picasso. Vollard was a collector of paintings and, very significantly, a successful art dealer.

Having managed to charm Voller. Picasso provided himself with a sure source of income.

In 1904, Picasso met and became friends with Guillaume Apollinaire.

Also in 1904, Picasso met his first true love of his life - Fernand Olivier.

It is unknown what attracted Fernanda to this short, compact Spaniard (Picasso was only 158 centimeters tall - he was one of the “great shorties”). Their love blossomed quickly and magnificently. Tall Fernanda was crazy about her Pablo.

Fernande Olivier became Picasso's first permanent model. Since 1904, he simply could not work unless there was a female character in front of him. Both were 23 years old. They lived easily, cheerfully and very poorly. Fernanda turned out to be a useless housewife. And Picasso could not stand this in his women, and their civil marriage went downhill.

“Girl on a Ball” - this painting, painted by Picasso in 1905, is considered by painting experts to be a transitional period in the artist’s work - between “blue” and “pink”.

During these years, Picasso's favorite place in Paris was the Medrano Circus. He loved the circus. because they are circus performers, people of unfortunate fate, professional wanderers, homeless vagabonds, forced to pretend to have fun all their lives.

The nude figures in Picasso's 1906 canvases are calm and even peaceful. They no longer look lonely - the theme of loneliness. worries about the future faded into the background.

Several works of 1907, including “Self-Portrait,” were made in a special “African” technique. And the very time of the fascination with masks will be called the “African period” by specialists in the field of painting. Step by step, Picasso moved towards cubism.

“Les Demoiselles d'Avignon” – Picaso worked especially intently on this painting. Whole year he kept the canvas under a thick cape, not allowing even Fernanda to look at it.

The painting depicted a brothel. In 1907, when everyone saw the picture, a serious scandal broke out. Everyone looked at the picture. The reviewers unanimously declared that Picasso’s picture was nothing more than a publishing house over art.

At the beginning of 1907, at the height of the scandal surrounding “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,” the artist Georges Braque came to his gallery. Braque and Picasso immediately became friends and began the theoretical development of Cubism. The main idea was to achieve the effect of a three-dimensional image using intersecting planes and construction using geometric shapes.

This period occurred in 1908-1909. The paintings painted by Picasso during this period were still not much different from the same “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”. The very first paintings in the cubist style found buyers and admirers.

The period of so-called “analytical” cubism occurred in 1909-1910. Picasso moved away from Cezanne's softness of colors. Geometric figures decreased in size, the images became chaotic, and the paintings themselves became more complex.

The final period of the formation of Cubism is called “synthetic”. It occurred in 1911-1917.

By the summer of 1909, Pablo, who was in his thirties, had become rich. It was in 1909 that he accumulated so much money that he opened his own bank account, and by the fall he was able to afford both new housing and a new workshop.

Eva-Marcel became the first woman in Picasso’s life who left him on her own, without waiting for the artist himself to leave her. In 1915 she died of consumption. With the death of his beloved Eva, Picasso lost the ability to work for a long time. The depression lasted for several months.

In 1917, Picasso's social circle expanded - he met amazing person poet and artist Jean Cocteau.

Then Cocteau convinced Picasso to go with him to Italy, Rome, to unwind and forget his sadness.

In Rome, Picasso saw a girl and instantly fell in love. It was Russian ballet dancer Olga Khokhlova.

“Portrait of Olga in an Armchair” – 1917

In 1918, Picasso proposed. They went together to Malaga so that Olga could meet Picasso’s parents. The parents gave the go-ahead. At the beginning of February, Pablo and Olga went to Paris. Here on February 12, 1918 they became husband and wife.

Their marriage lasted just over a year and began to crack. This time there was most likely a reason. in differences in temperament. Having become convinced of her husband’s infidelity, they no longer lived together, but still Picasso did not divorce. Olga remained the artist’s wife, albeit formally, until her death in 1955.

In 1921, Olga gave birth to a son, who was named Paulo or simply Paul.

Pablo Picasso devoted 12 years to surrealism creative life, periodically returning to Cubism.

Following the principles of surrealism formulated by Andre Breton, Picasso, however, always followed his own path.

“Dance” – 1925

The very first painting by Picasso, painted in a surrealist style in 1925 under the influence of artistic creativity Breton and his supporters. This is the painting “Dance”. In the work with which Picasso marked a new period in his creative life, there is a lot of aggression and pain.

It was January 1927. Pablo was already very rich and famous. One day on the embankment of the Seine, he saw a girl and fell in love. The girl's name was Maria-Therese Walter. They were separated by a huge age difference - nineteen years. He rented her an apartment not far from his house. And soon he wrote only Maria Teresa.

Maria-Therese Walter

In the summer, when Pablo took his family to the Mediterranean Sea, Maria Teresa followed. Pablo settled her next to the house. Picasso asked Olga for a divorce. But Olga refused, because day after day Picasso became even richer.

Picasso managed to buy Boisgeloup Castle for Marie-Therese, where he actually moved himself.

In the fall of 1935, Maria Teresa gave birth to his daughter, whom she named Maya.

The girl was registered under the name of an unknown father. Picasso swore that he would recognize his daughter immediately after the divorce, but when Olga died, he never kept his promise.

“Maya with a Doll” – 1938

Marie-Therese Walter became the main inspiration. Picasso for several years. It was to her that he dedicated his first sculptures, on which he worked at the Château de Boisgelou during 1930-1934.

“Maria-Therese Walter”, 1937

Fascinated by surrealism, Picasso completed his first sculptural compositions in the same surreal vein.

For Picasso, the Spanish War coincided with a personal tragedy - Mother Maria died two weeks before it began. Having buried her, Picasso lost the main thread connecting him with his homeland.

There is a tiny town in the Basque country in northern Spain called Guernica. On May 1, 1937, German aircraft raided this city and practically wiped it off the face of the earth. The news of the death of Guernica shocked the Planet. And soon this shock was repeated when a Picasso painting called “Guernica” appeared at the World Exhibition in Paris.

“Guernica”, 1937

In terms of the power of impact on the viewer, no painting can compare with “Guernica”.

In the fall of 1935, Picasso was sitting at a table in a street cafe in Montmartre. Here he saw Dora Maar. And …

Quite a bit of time passed and they found themselves in a shared bed. Dora was Serbian. They were separated by the war.

When the Germans began to invade France, a great exodus occurred. Artists, writers, and poets moved from Paris to Spain, Portugal, Algeria and America. Not everyone managed to escape, many died... Picasso did not go anywhere. He was at home and didn’t give a damn about Hitler and his Nazis. It's surprising that they didn't touch him. It is also surprising that Adolf Hitler himself was a fan of his work.

In 1943, Picasso became close to the communists, and in 1944 he announced that he was joining the French Communist Party. Picasso was awarded the Stalinist Award (in 1950). and then the Lenin Prize (in 1962).

At the end of 1944, Picasso went to the sea, to the south of France. It was found by Dora Maar in 1945. It turned out she was looking for him throughout the war. Picasso bought her a cozy house here in the south of France. And he announced that it was all over between them. The disappointment was so great that Dora perceived Pablo's words as a tragedy. Soon she suffered from mental illness and ended up in a psychiatric clinic. There she lived the rest of her days.

In the summer of 1945, Pablo returned briefly to Paris, where he saw Françoise Gilot and immediately fell in love. In 1947, Pablo and Françoise moved to the south of France to Valoris. Soon Pablo learned the good news - Françoise was expecting a child. In 1949, Picasso's son Claude was born. A year later, Françoise gave birth to a girl, who was given the name Paloma.

But Picasso was not Picasso if the family relationship lasted a long time. They were already starting to quarrel. And suddenly Françoise quietly left, it was the summer of 1953. Because of her departure, Picasso began to feel like an old man.

In 1954, Fate brought Pablo Picasso together with his last companion, who in the end of the great painter would become his wife. It was Jacqueline Rock. Picasso was older than Jacqueline by as much as... 47 years. At the time they met, she was only 26 years old. He is 73.

Three years after Olga's death, Picasso decided to buy a large castle in which he could spend the rest of his days with Jacqueline. He chose Vauvereng Castle on the slope of Mount Saint Victoria in the south of France.

In 1970, an event took place that became his main award in these last years. The city authorities of Barcelona turned to the artist with a request to give permission to open a museum of his paintings. This was Picasso's first museum. The second - in Paris - opened after his death. In 1985, the Parisian Hotel Salé was turned into a Picasso museum.

In the last years of his life, he suddenly began to rapidly lose his hearing and vision. Then my memory began to weaken. Then my legs gave out. By the end of 1972, he was completely blind. Jacqueline was always there. She loved him very much. No moaning, no complaining, no tears.

April 8, 1973 - on this day he died. According to Picasso's will, his ashes were buried next to Voverang Castle...

Source – Wikipedia and Informal biographies (Nikolai Nadezhdin).

Pablo Picasso - biography, facts, paintings - the great Spanish painter updated: January 16, 2018 by: website

), full name Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisima Trinidad Martir Patricio Ruiz y Picasso (Spanish. Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Ruíz y Picasso listen)) - Spanish artist, sculptor, graphic artist, ceramist and designer.

Experts called Picasso the most “expensive” artist - in a year the volume is only official sales of his works amounted to 262 million.

First works

Picasso began drawing from childhood; Picasso received his first lessons in artistic skill from his father, the art teacher J. Ruiz, and soon mastered it perfectly. At the age of 8 he painted his first serious oil painting, Picador, with which he did not part throughout his life.

Picasso studied at the art school in A Coruña (-). In 2006 he entered the School of Fine Arts in Barcelona. First he signs his father's name Ruiz Blasco, but then chooses his mother's last name Picasso. In September he leaves for Madrid, where a competition for the San Fernando Academy takes place in October.

A work of the transitional period - from “blue” to “pink” - “Girl on a Ball” (1905, Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow).

During the Roman preparations for the Parade, Picasso met the ballerina Olga Khokhlova, who became his first wife. On February 12 of the year, they get married in a Russian church in Paris; Jean Cocteau, Max Jacob and Guillaume Apollinaire were witnesses at their wedding. Their son Paul is born (February 4).

The euphoric and conservative atmosphere of post-war Paris, Picasso’s marriage to Olga Khokhlova, the artist’s success in society - all this partly explains this return to figurativeness, temporary and, moreover, relative, since Picasso continued to paint pronounced cubist still lifes at that time (“Mandolin and Guitar”, 1924). Along with the cycle of giantesses and bathers, paintings inspired by the "Pompeian" style ("Woman in White", 1923), numerous portraits of his wife ("Portrait of Olga", pastel, 1923) and son ("Paul in the costume of Pierrot") represent one some of the most captivating works ever written by the artist, even if, with their slightly classical orientation and parody, they somewhat puzzled the avant-garde of the time.

Surrealism

Picasso had a tremendous influence on artists from all countries, becoming one of the most famous masters in the art of the 20th century.

Gallery


Name: Pablo Picasso

Age: 91 years old

Place of Birth: Malaga, Spain

A place of death: Mougins, France

Activity: spanish artist

Family status: was married

Pablo Picasso - biography

Everything that concerns Picasso has never been simple... His unusual fate - biography was programmed from the very moment of his birth: October 25, 1881 in house 15 on Plaza de la Merced in Malaga. The child was stillborn. His uncle, Doctor Salvador, who was present at the birth, acted in the most shocking way in this fatal situation - he calmly lit a Havana cigar and exhaled acrid smoke into the baby’s face. Everyone screamed in horror, including the newborn.

Pablo Picasso - childhood

At baptism, the baby received the name Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Crispin Crispignano de la Santisima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso. According to Spanish custom, parents included in this list the names of all their distant ancestors. Among them in this impoverished noble family were the Archbishop of Lima and the Viceroy of Peru. There was only one artist in the family - Pablo's father. Jose Ruiz, however, did not achieve any significant success in this field. In the end, he became the caretaker of the municipal art museum with a meager salary and a lot of bad habits. Therefore, the family relied mainly on little Pablo’s mother, the energetic and strong-willed Maria Picasso Lopez.

Fate did not spoil this woman. Her father, Don Francisco Picasso Guardena, was considered a rich man in Malaga - he owned vineyards on the slope of Mount Gibralfaro. But, having heard enough stories about America, he left his wife and three daughters in Malaga and went to make money in Cuba, where he soon died of yellow fever. As a result, his family was forced to earn a living by doing laundry and sewing. At the age of 25, Maria married Don Jose, a year later her first child Pablo was born, followed by two sisters, Dolores and Conchita. But Pablo was still his favorite child.

According to Doña Maria, “he was so beautiful, like an angel and a demon at the same time, that you could not take your eyes off him.” It was his mother who formed the unshakable self-confidence in Pablo’s character that accompanied him throughout his life. “If you become a soldier. - she told the baby, “you will certainly rise to the rank of general, and if you become a monk, you will become a Pope.” This sincere admiration for the child was shared with his mother by his grandmother and two aunts who moved to live in their house. Pablo, raised surrounded by women who adored him, said that from childhood he was accustomed to the fact that there should always be a woman nearby. loving woman, ready to fulfill his every whim.

Another childhood experience in Pablo’s biography that radically influenced Picasso’s entire life was the 1884 earthquake. Half of the city was destroyed, more than six hundred citizens died and thousands were injured. Pablo remembered for the rest of his life the ominous night when his father miraculously managed to pull him out from under the ruins of his home. Few people realized that the ragged and angular lines of cubism were an echo of that very earthquake when the familiar world fell apart.

Pablo began drawing at the age of six. “There was a statue in the hallway at home. “Hercules with a club,” Picasso said. - So, I sat down and drew this Hercules. And it wasn’t a child’s drawing, it was quite realistic.” Of course, Don Jose immediately saw in Pablo the successor of his work and began to teach his son the basics of painting and drawing. Pablo remembered the harsh drill of his father, who spent days “putting a hand” on his son. long years. At the age of 65, having visited an exhibition of children's drawings, he bitterly remarked: “When I was as old as these children, I could draw like Raphael. It took me many years to learn to draw like these kids!”

In 1891, 10-year-old Pablo began attending painting courses in La Coruña. where his father got him a job, having received a teaching position there. Pablo studied in La Coruña for a short time. At the age of 13, he considered himself independent enough to live without his parents, who really didn’t like him numerous novels, including with young teachers of the school. Moreover, Pablo was a poor student, and his father had to beg the school director, an acquaintance of his, not to kick his son out. In the end, Pablo himself left school and went to Barcelona to enter the Academy of Arts.

He did not do it without difficulty - the teachers did not believe that the paintings presented to them for viewing were drawn not by an adult man, but by a boy who was 14 years old. Pablo got very angry when people called him “boy.” Already at the age of 14, he was a regular at brothels, of which there were many at that time near the Academy of Arts. “Sex from a young age was my favorite pastime,” Picasso admitted. We Spaniards are mass in the morning, bullfighting in the afternoon and brothel late in the evening.”

As his classmate Manuel Palhares later recalled from his biography of that time, Pablo once lived for a week in one of the brothels and, as payment for his stay, painted the walls of the brothel with frescoes of erotic content. At the same time, night trips to brothels did not in the least prevent Pablo from devoting all his days to religious painting. To the young artist we even ordered several paintings for decoration convent. One of them - “Science and Charity” - was awarded a diploma at the National Exhibition in Madrid. Unfortunately, most of these paintings were lost during the Spanish Civil War.

And yet, fellow students recalled the biography of their friend, Pablo was constantly in love with someone. His first love was Rosita del Oro. She was more than ten years older than him and worked as a dancer in a popular Barcelona cabaret. Rosita, like many of Picasso’s women later, recalled that Pablo struck her with his “magnetic” gaze and literally hypnotized her. This hypnosis lasted for five whole years. In Picasso's memory, Rosita remained the only woman who did not say nasty things about him after breaking up.

They separated when Pablo went to Madrid to attend the Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, considered at that time the most advanced art school in all of Spain. He entered there very easily, but lasted only 7 months at the Academy. The teachers recognized the young man’s talent, but could not cope with his character: Pablo flew into a rage every time when they told him how and what to draw.

As a result, he spent most of the first six months of his studies “under arrest” - at the Academy of San Fernando there was a special punishment cell for guilty students. In the seventh month of his “imprisonment,” during which Pablo became friends with a similarly obstinate student, Carles Casagemas, the son of the United States Consul in Barcelona, ​​a typical representative of the “golden youth,” who also flaunted his homosexual inclinations, he decided leave the country.

If Cezanne had lived in Spain, he said, he would probably have been shot altogether...” Together with Casagemas, they went to Paris - to Montmartre, where, as they said, real Art and Freedom reigned.

Pablo Picasso - Paris

Pablo’s father gave him money for Pablo’s trip, 300 pesetas. He himself once intended to conquer Paris and really wanted the whole world to know the name Ruiz. When rumors reached him that, having ended up in Paris. Pablo began signing his works maiden name Picasso's mother Jos Ruiz suffered a heart attack.

“Can you imagine me being Ruiz? - Picasso made excuses many years later, - Or Diego Jose Ruiz? Or Juan Nepomuceno Ruiz? No, my mother's last name always seemed better to me than my father's last name. This surname seemed strange, and it had a double “s”, rarely found in spanish surnames, because Picasso is Italian surname. And besides, have you ever noticed the double “s” in the names of Matisse and Poussin?”

Picasso failed to conquer Paris the first time. Casagemas, with whom Picasso shared an apartment on Kolechkur Street, already on the second day after his arrival, forgetting about all his “homosexual chic”, fell head over heels in love with the model Germaine Florentin. She was in no hurry to reciprocate the ardent Spaniard's feelings. As a result, Carles fell into a terrible depression, and the young artists, having forgotten about the purpose of their visit, spent two months in constant drunkenness. After which Pablo grabbed his friend and went with him back to Spain, where he tried to bring him back to life. In February 1901, Carles, without telling Pablo, went to Paris, where he tried to shoot Germaine, and then committed suicide.

This event shocked Pablo so much that, returning to Paris in April 1901, he first went to the fatal beauty Germaine and unsuccessfully tried to persuade her to become his muse. That's right - not a mistress, but a muse, since Picasso simply did not have money even to feed her lunch. There wasn’t even enough money for paints - it was then that his brilliant “blue period” was born, and the blue and gray paint forever became synonymous with poverty for Pablo.

In those years he lived in a dilapidated house on Place Ravignan, nicknamed Bateau Lavoir, that is, “Laundry Barge.” In this barn, without light or heat, huddled a commune of poor artists, mostly emigrants from Spain and Germany. No one locked the doors to Bateau Lavoir; all property was shared. Both models and friends had something in common. Of the dozens of women who shared bed with Picasso at that time, the artist himself recalled only two.

The first was a certain Madeleine (her only portrait is now kept in the Tate Gallery in London). As Picasso himself said, in December 1904 Madeleine became pregnant, and he seriously considered the issue of marriage. But due to the eternal cold in Bateau-Lavoir, the pregnancy ended in miscarriage, and Picasso soon fell in love with a stately girl with green eyes, the first beauty of Bateau-Lavoir. Everyone knew her as Fernande Olivier, although her real name was Amelie Lat. There were rumors that she was illegitimate daughter very noble man.

Fernanda ended up in Bateau Lavoir, where she made a living by posing for artists, at the age of fifteen after the death of her mother.

Opium helped them get closer. In September 1905, Pablo invited Fernanda to celebrate the sale of one of his paintings - galleries began to be interested in his work - at a literary club in Montparnasse, where both future geniuses and successful mediocrities gathered. After absinthe, Pablo invited the girl to smoke a pipe of the then fashionable drug, and in the morning she found herself in Picasso’s bed. “Love flared up, overwhelming me with passion,” she wrote in her diary, which many years later she published in the form of a book, “Loving Picasso.” - He won my heart with the sad, pleading look of his huge eyes, which pierced me against my will...

Having got Fernanda, the jealous Picasso first of all acquired a reliable lock and, every time he left Bateau Lavoir, locked his mistress in his room. Fernanda did not object because she did not have shoes, and Picasso did not have the money to buy them for her. And it was difficult in all of Paris to find a lazier person than her. Fernanda could not go outside for weeks, lie on the sofa, have sex or read pulp novels. Every morning, Picasso stole milk and croissants for her, which the peddlers left at the doors of the good bourgeoisie on the next street.

Poverty receded, and the depressive “blue” period in Picasso’s work gently turned into a calmer “pink”, when wealthy collectors became interested in the paintings of the young Spaniard. The first was Gertrude Stein, the daughter of an American millionaire, who fled to Paris for the delights of bohemian life. However, she paid little money for Picasso’s paintings, but she introduced him to Henri Matisse, Modigliani and other artists who set the tone in art.

The second millionaire was Russian merchant Sergei Shchukin. They met in the same 1905 in Montmartre, where Pablo drew cartoons of passers-by for a couple of francs. They drank to meet each other, after which they went to Picasso’s studio, where the Russian guest purchased a couple of paintings by the artist for a hundred francs. For Picasso it was a lot of money. It was Shchukin, regularly buying up Picasso's paintings, who finally pulled him out of poverty and helped him get back on his feet. The Russian merchant collected 51 paintings by Picasso - this is the largest collection of the artist’s works in the world, and it is Shchukin who we owe to the fact that Picasso’s originals hang in both the Hermitage and the Museum of Fine Arts. Pushkin.

Pablo Picasso - cubism

But with prosperity came the end of family happiness. Fernanda briefly enjoyed life in a luxurious apartment on the Boulevard Clichy, where there was a real piano, mirrors, a maid and a cook. Moreover, Fernanda herself took the first step towards separation. The thing is. that in 1907, Picasso became interested in a new direction in art - cubism, and presented to the public his painting “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”. The painting caused a real scandal in the press: “This is a canvas stretched on a stretcher, rather controversially, but confidently stained with paint, and the purpose of this canvas is unknown,” wrote Parisian newspapers. - There is nothing that might be of interest. You can guess the crudely drawn female figures in the picture. What are they for? What do they want to express or at least demonstrate? Why did the author do this?

But an even bigger scandal broke out at Picasso’s home. Fernanda, who was not at all interested in fashionable trends in art, perceived this picture as a mockery of herself personally. Say, using her as a model for a painting. Pablo deliberately, “out of jealousy, disgustingly disfigured her face and body, which was admired by so many artists.” And Fernanda decided to “take revenge”: she began to secretly leave home and pose nude for artists in Bateau Lavoir. It is not difficult to imagine the rage of the jealous Picasso, who did not allow the thought of his beloved posing for another artist when he saw nude portraits of his girlfriend in Montmartre.

Since then they living together turned into an ongoing scandal. Picasso tried to be at home as little as possible, spending most of his time in the Hermitage cafe, where he met the Polish artist Ludwig Markoussis and his girlfriend, petite 27-year-old Eva Guell. She - unlike Fernanda - to modern painting She was calm and willingly posed for Pablo for his portraits in the cubist style. She perceived one of them, which Picasso called “My Beauty,” as a declaration of love and reciprocated it.

So when Picasso and Fernanda Olivier separated in 1911, Eva Guell became the mistress of the artist’s new house on Raspail Boulevard. However, they rarely visited Paris, only when there was a din of exhibitions in which Picasso was increasingly invited to participate. They traveled with great pleasure throughout Spain and England, living either in Céret, at the foot of the Pyrenees, or in Avignon. It was, as they said, “an endless pre-wedding journey.” It ended in the spring of 1915, when Pablo and Eva decided to get married, but did not have time. Eva fell ill with tuberculosis and died. “My life has turned into hell. - Pablo wrote in a letter to Gertrude Stein. “Poor Eva is dead, I am in unbearable pain...”

Pablo Picasso - Russian ballet

Picasso had a hard time with the death of his beloved. He stopped taking care of himself, drank constantly, smoked opium and did not leave brothels. This went on for almost two years, until the poet Jean Cocteau persuaded Picasso to take part in his new theater project. Cocteau had long collaborated with Sergei Diaghilev, the owner of the famous Russian Ballet, painted posters for the enterprises of Nijinsky and Karsavina, composed the libretto, but then he came up with the ballet “Parade”, a strange performance without a plot, and there was less music in it than street noises .

Until that day, Picasso had been indifferent to ballet, but Cocteau’s proposal interested him. In February 1917, he went to Rome, where at that moment Russian ballerinas were fleeing the horrors of the Civil War. There, in Italy, Picasso found new love. It was Olga Khokhlova, the daughter of a Russian army officer and one of the most beautiful ballerinas in the troupe.

Picasso became interested in Olga with all his characteristic temperament. After the extravagant Fernanda and temperamental Eva, Olga attracted him with her calmness, commitment to traditional values ​​and classical, almost ancient beauty.

“Be careful,” Diaghilev warned him, “you have to marry Russian girls.”

“You’re joking,” the artist answered him, confident that he would always remain the master of the situation. But everything turned out just as Diaghilev said.

Already at the end of 1917, Pablo took Olga to Spain to introduce her to his parents. Dona Maria warmly received the Russian girl, went to performances with her participation and once warned her: “With my son, who was created only for himself and for no one else, no woman can be happy.” But Olga did not heed this warning.

On July 12, 1918, a wedding ceremony took place in the Orthodox Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Paris. Honeymoon they spent time in each other's arms in Biarritz, forgetting about war, revolution, ballet and painting.

“Upon their return, they settled in a two-story apartment on La Boesie Street,” Picasso’s friend, the Hungarian photographer and artist Gyula Halas, better known as Brassaï, described their life in the book “Meetings with Picasso.” - Picasso allocated one floor for his studio, the other was given to his wife. She turned it into a classic social salon with cozy sofas, curtains and mirrors. Spacious dining room with a large sliding table, a serving table, in each corner there is a round table on one leg; the living room is decorated in white tones, and the bedroom has a copper-trimmed double bed.

Everything was thought out to the smallest detail, and there was not a speck of dust anywhere, the parquet floor and furniture sparkled. This apartment was completely at odds with the artist’s usual lifestyle: there was neither that unusual furniture that he loved so much, nor any of those strange objects with which he liked to surround himself, nor things scattered as needed. Olga jealously guarded the possessions that she considered her property from the influence of bright and strong personality Picasso. And even hanging paintings by Picasso from the Cubist period, in large beautiful frames, looked as if they belonged to a wealthy collector...”

Picasso himself was gradually turning into a successful bourgeois with all the external attributes of success befitting this position. He bought a Hispano-Suiza limousine, hired a driver in livery, and began wearing expensive suits made by famous Parisian tailors. The artist led a hectic social life, never missing premieres in the theater and opera, attended receptions and parties - always accompanied by his beautiful and sophisticated wife: he was at the zenith of his “secular” period.

The crowning achievement of this period was the birth of his son Paolo in February 1921. This event excited Picasso - he made endless drawings of his son and wife, marking on them not only the day, but also the hour when he drew them. All of them are made in the neoclassical style, and the women in his image resemble Olympian deities. Olga treated the child with almost painful passion and adoration.

But over time, this beautiful, measured life began to seem to Picasso as his curse. “The more rich he became, the more he envied that other Picasso, who once wore a mechanic’s robe and huddled with Fernanda in the windswept Bateau Lavoir,” wrote Brassaï. “Soon Picasso left the upper apartment and moved to live in his workshop on the lower floor. And, without a doubt, never before has any “respectable” apartment been so unrespectable.

It consisted of four or five rooms, each with a fireplace with a marble plaque, above which there was a mirror. The furniture was taken out of the rooms, and in its place were piled up paintings, cardboards, bags, forms from sculptures, bookshelves, piles of papers... The doors of all the rooms were wide open, and perhaps simply removed from their hinges, thanks to which this huge apartment turned into one large space, divided into nooks and crannies, each of which was reserved for performing a specific job.

The parquet floor, which had not been polished for a long time, was covered with a carpet of cigarette butts... Picasso's easel stood in the largest and brightest room - no doubt, there had once been a living room here; it was the only room in this strange apartment that was at least somehow furnished. Madame Picasso never entered this workshop, and since, with the exception of a few friends, Picasso did not allow anyone in there, the dust could behave as it pleased, without fear of a woman’s hand starting to restore order.”

Olga felt her husband gradually returning to his inner world- a world of art to which she had no access. From time to time she staged violent scenes of jealousy, and in response Picasso became even more withdrawn into himself. “She wanted too much from me,” Picasso later said about Olga. “It was the worst period of my life.” He began to take out his irritation in painting, depicting his wife either as an old nag or as an evil vixen. Nevertheless, Picasso did not want a divorce.

After all, then, according to their terms marriage contract, they would have to divide equally their entire fortune, and most importantly, his paintings. Therefore, Olga remained the official wife of the artist until her death. She claimed that she never stopped loving Picasso. He answered her: “You love me like they love a piece of chicken, trying to gnaw it to the bone!”

Marie-Therese became his “Thursday woman” - Picasso visited her only once a week. This continued until 1935, when she gave him a daughter, Maya. Then he brought Marie-Therese and her daughter into the house and introduced her to Olga: “This child is a new work by Picasso.”

It seemed that after such a statement a break was inevitable. Olga left their apartment, moving to a villa in the suburbs of Paris. Many years later, Picasso argued that politics added fuel to the fire in his conflict with his wife - in those years, a civil war was unfolding in Spain, and the artist began to support the communists and republicans. Olga, as befits a noblewoman who suffered from the Bolsheviks, was on the side of the monarchists. However, the divorce never came to pass. Picasso also did not fulfill his promise to Marie-Therese - Maya never received her father’s surname, and in her birth certificate there was a dash in the “father” column. However, after some time, Picasso agreed... to become Maya's godfather.

In 1936, another change occurred in the biography of Picasso’s personal life. His new lover was Dora Maar, a photographer, artist and simply a bohemian party girl. They met in the cafe "Two Eggs". Picasso admired her hands - Dora amused herself by placing her palm on the table and quickly thrusting a knife between her outstretched fingers. She touched the skin several times, but did not seem to notice the blood or feel any pain. Amazed, Picasso immediately fell head over heels in love.

In addition, Dora was the only one of all Picasso’s women who understood painting and sincerely admired Pablo’s paintings. It was Dora who created a unique photo report about Picasso’s creative process, recording on camera all the stages of the creation of the epoch-making canvas “Guernica,” dedicated to a town destroyed by the Nazis in the Basque Country.

Then, however, it turned out that, along with these and other advantages. Dora also had one, but very significant, drawback - she was extremely nervous. Almost burst into tears. “I could never paint her smiling,” Picasso later recalled, “for me she was always a Crying Woman.”

Therefore, Picasso, already prone to depression, preferred to keep his new mistress at a distance. Picasso's house was run by men - his driver Marcel and his college friend Sabartes, who became the artist's personal secretary. “Those who believed that behind social life the artist forgot about his youth, the independence of that time, the joys of friendship, were deeply mistaken,” wrote Brassaï. - When problems beset Picasso, when he was exhausted from constant family scandals to such an extent that he even stopped writing, he called Sabartes, who had long since moved to the United States with his wife. Picasso asked Sabartes to return to Europe and live with him, with him...

It was a cry of despair: the artist was going through the most difficult crisis of his life. And in November, Sabartes arrived and began to work: he began to sort through Picasso’s books and papers and retype his handwritten poems on a typewriter. From that time on, they became inseparable, like a traveler and his shadow...”

The three of them survived the Second world war. Despite the fact that the Nazis called his paintings “decadent” or “Bolshevik daub,” Picasso decided to take a risk and stay in Paris. “In the occupied city, life was difficult even for Picasso: he could not get gasoline for his car or coal to heat his workshop. - wrote Sabartes. “And he, like everyone else, had to adapt to military reality: standing in lines, riding the subway or taking a bus, which rarely ran and was always crowded. In the evenings, he could almost always be found in the hot Café de Flore, among friends, where he felt at home, if not better...

It was at the Café de Flore that Picasso met Françoise Gilot. He approached her table with a large vase full of cherries and offered to help her. A conversation ensued. It turned out that the girl abandoned her studies at the Sorbonne to study painting. For this, her father kicked her out of the house, but Françoise did not lose heart. She earned her living and education by giving riding lessons. “Such a beautiful woman cannot possibly be an artist,” the master exclaimed and invited her to his place... to take a bath. In occupied Paris hot water was a luxury. “However,” he added. “If you want to see my paintings more than wash yourself, then it’s better to go to the museum.”

Picasso was very wary of fans of his talent. But for Françoise he made an exception. Brassaï wrote: “Picasso was captivated by Françoise’s small mouth, full lips, thick hair that framed her face, huge and slightly asymmetrical green eyes, a teenager’s thin waist and rounded contours. Picasso was captivated by Françoise and allowed her to idolize him. He loved her as if the feeling had come to him for the first time... But always greedy and always satiated, like the Seville seducer, he never allowed a woman to enslave him, freeing himself from her power in creativity. For him love adventure was not an end in itself, but a necessary incentive for the realization of creative possibilities, which were immediately embodied in new paintings, drawings, engravings and sculptures.

After the war, Françoise gave birth to two children to Picasso: son Claude in 1947 and daughter Paloma in 1949. It seemed that the 70-year-old artist had finally found his happiness. The same could not be said about his girlfriend, who over time discovered that all the previous women still continued to play a certain role in Pablo’s life. So, if they went to the south of France in the summer, then the vacation was sure to be enlivened by the presence of Olga, who showered her with streams of abuse. In Paris, Thursdays and Sundays were the days when Picasso went to visit Dora Maar or invited her to dinner.

As a result, in 1953, Françoise, taking the children, left the artist. For Picasso this was a complete surprise. Françoise stated that she “didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with historical monument" This phrase soon became known throughout Paris. They began to laugh at Picasso, who boasted that “no woman leaves men like him.”

He found salvation from shame in the arms of a new favorite - Jacqueline Roque, a 25-year-old saleswoman from a supermarket in the resort town of Vallauris, near which the artist’s villa was located. Jacqueline raised her 6-year-old daughter Katrina alone. being a very rational woman, she understood that she should not miss such a chance as to become the companion of an already middle-aged and rich artist. She was neither as sensual as Fernanda, nor as gentle as Eva, she did not have the grace of Olga and the beauty of Marie-Therese, she was not as smart as Dora Maar, and as talented as Francoise. But she had one huge advantage - for the sake of life with Picasso, she was ready to do anything. She simply called him God. Or Monsignor - as a bishop. She endured all his whims, depression, suspiciousness with a smile, followed his diet and never asked for anything. For Picasso, exhausted by family feuds, she became a real salvation. And his second official wife.

Olga died of cancer in 1955, releasing Picasso from the obligations of the marriage contract. Jacqueline Rock's wedding took place in March 1961. The ceremony was modest - they drank only water, ate soup and chicken left over from the day before. Future life The couple's life at the Notre-Dame-de-Vie estate in Mougins was distinguished by the same modesty and privacy. “I refuse to see people,” the artist told his friend Brassaï. -What for? For what? I would not wish such fame on anyone, even my worst enemies. I suffer from it psychologically, I defend myself as best I can: I erect real barricades, although the doors are double-locked day and night.” This was to Jacqueline’s advantage - she had no intention of sharing her genius with anyone.

Gradually, she subjugated Picasso so much that she decided almost everything for him. At first she quarreled with all his friends, then she managed to convince her husband that his children and grandchildren were just waiting for his death in order to receive the inheritance.
last years
The last years of the artist’s biography were remembered by his relatives as a real nightmare. Thus, the artist’s granddaughter Marina Picasso in her book “Picasso, my grandfather” recalled that the artist’s villa reminded her of an impregnable bunker surrounded by barbed wire: “My father is holding my hand. We silently approach the gates of my grandfather's mansion. Father rings the bell. As before, fear fills me. The villa guard comes out. “Monsieur Paul, do you have a rendezvous?” “Yes,” mutters the father.

He lets go of my fingers so I don't feel how wet his palm is. “Now I’ll find out if the owner can receive you.” The gates slam shut. It's raining, but we have to wait for what the owner will say. Just like it happened last Saturday. And before that on Thursday. We are overcome with guilt. The gate opens again, and the watchman says, looking away: “The owner cannot accept today. Madame Jacqueline asked me to tell you that he was working...” When, after several attempts, my father managed to see him, he asked his grandfather for money. I stood in front of my father. My grandfather took out a stack of bills, and my father, like a thief, took them. Suddenly Pablo (we couldn’t call him “Grandpa”) would start shouting: “You can’t take care of your children yourself. You can't earn your living! You can't do anything on your own! You will always be mediocre."

After a few years, these trips stopped - Picasso lost all interest in his children and grandchildren. However, he also began to treat Jacqueline Rock coldly. “I will die without ever loving anyone,” he once admitted.

“My grandfather was never interested in the fate of his loved ones. He was only concerned about his creativity, from which he suffered or was happy. He loved children only for their innocence in his paintings, and women - for the sexual and cannibalistic impulses that they aroused in him... Once, I was nine years old. I fainted from exhaustion. I was taken to the doctor, and the doctor was very surprised that Picasso’s granddaughter was in such a condition. and wrote him a letter asking him to send me to the medical center. My grandfather didn’t answer - he didn’t care.”

Pablo Picasso - the end of the artist's life

On the morning of April 8, 1973, Pablo Picasso died of pneumonia. Shortly before his death, the artist said, “My death will be a shipwreck. When a large ship dies, everything around it is sucked into the crater.”

And so it happened. His grandson Pablito, despite everything, retained boundless love for his grandfather, asked to be allowed to attend the funeral, but Jacqueline Roque refused. On the day of the funeral, Pablito drank a bottle of decoloran, a bleaching chemical liquid, and burned his insides. “He died a few days later in the hospital,” recalled Marina Picasso. “I just had to find money for the funeral.” Newspapers have already reported that the grandson of the great artist, who lived a few hundred meters from his villa in complete poverty, could not survive the death of his grandfather. Our college comrades helped us out. Without telling me a word, they collected the amount needed for the funeral from their pocket money.”

Two years later, Pablo's son, Paolo, died - he drank heavily, experiencing the death of his own son. In 1977, Marie-Therese Walter hanged herself. Dora Maar also died in poverty, although many paintings given to her by Picasso were found in her apartment. She refused to sell them. Jacqueline Rock herself was sucked into the funnel. After the death of her Monsignor, she began to behave strangely - she talked to Picasso all the time as if he were alive. In October 1986, on the day of the opening of the artist's exhibition in Madrid, she suddenly realized that Picasso had been gone for a long time, and put a bullet in her forehead.

Marina Picasso suggested that if her grandfather had known about these tragedies, he would not have been very worried. “Every positive value has a negative value.” - Picasso liked to repeat.