Pablo Picasso was born October 25, 1881, in Málaga, Spain and died April 8, 1973, in Mougins, France. The Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, was one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century and is credited with as the creator (along with Georges Braque) of Cubism.

His power to analyze art demonstrated Picasso’s uncanny artistic talent in his early years, painting in a realistic manner through his childhood and adolescence. During the first decade of the twentieth century his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas.

During the late 1930’s Picasso’s style changes yet again, utilizing elements of classicism and surrealism into his work. In 1937 he created what may be his most famous piece Guernica, depicting the bombing of the city during the Spanish Civil war. The painting projected the inhumanity, brutality, and angst of war. Although considered part of the Entarte Kunst, Picasso’s fame shielded him from the Gestapo raids and concentrations camps so many of his fellow artists endured.

Picasso’s final works were a mixture of styles, his means of expression in constant flux until the end of his life. Devoting his full energies to his work, Picasso became more daring, his works more colorful and expressive, and from 1968 through 1971 he produced a torrent of paintings and hundreds of copperplate etchings. At the time these works were dismissed as the works of a senile, aging man. Today they are understood as neo-expressionist precursors, the culmination of an exceptionally prolific artist.