Artists Series page 6: «I am Picasso»

Well, he arrived in Paris with a few other Spaniards and he knew he would conquer this city, the mecca of all artists, the most important capital wherein to become an internationally recognised artist, and rich… He used to sign Pablo Ruiz Picasso, then Pablo R. Picasso, but in 1901, he started signing his work «Picasso». He was becoming Picasso…

Now let us not get carried away with the legend(s) about Picasso. He was a very well trained and educated artist who had a rather comfortable existence in Spain. He was trained, not only by his father but by the greatest art academy of Spain, the Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid. And he was an unusually lucky young man. In 1895, his father landed a job at the Escuela de Bellas Artes de Barcelona (Barcelona School of Fine Arts) and Picasso was admitted as a student there as well. He studied two years at the Academy gaining knowledge of the classical style of painting, in other words, academicism. So you can see that he did not lack schooling or training…

Another «legend» (although it is a fact) is that, at the age of 14 years, he was able to ace the entrance examinations to the Escuela de la Lonja and complete all the assignments in a single day. But what where these assignments? They were renditions in academism, something Picasso had been well trained in doing, so it was not such a difficult task for the lad at all. He had the advantage of having been prepared for it. And who knows how many other art students had done…and are doing…the same thing…

One more legend (the last one I’ll refer to) is that his father, after recognising the extraordinary work of his child…a painting of pigeons that Pablo had finished for him…laid his brushes in front of him and swore never to paint again. I don’t know if that ever happened or if it happened that way or that his father simply did not need to paint any more, after all he had a cushy job at a prestigious academy and that might have been all he was after. Who knows…

In 1900 he travels to Paris. One of his paintings had been selected to the 1900 Paris Exposition. This was a very important world’s fair… In Paris he stayed with the Catalan artist Isidre Nonell, who, along with the works of Toulouse-Lautrec, influenced his early works greatly. He also met his first merchant, Pere Mañach who offered him 150 francos per month for a all the paintings he could do in one year and was also introduced to Berthe Weill, a well-known gallerist. All in all, he was in Paris less than three months and he had already set himself up quite well.

By 1912, settled in Paris, Picasso managed to surround himself with the cream of the intellectuality and artistry. His friends were the poet André Breton; Guillaume Apollinaire, the writer, as well as Alfred Jarry; y Gertrude Stein. Gertrude Stein practically adopted him and continuously invited him to her gatherings where everybody who was anybody in the art circles of Paris attended. She also commissioned a portrait from him which has become one of his most famous portraits…

IN PART THREE WE WILL DELVE INTO THE «PERIODS», THE «WOMEN» AND «DEATH».