Life and career
Origins and training
Born in Málaga to an artist father, Picasso attended art schools in Spain before building a career in France. Barcelona’s writers and artists helped shape his early outlook.
Places, turning points and artistic change
Blue and Rose-period figures were followed by Cubist experiments with his fellow painter Georges Braque. Later he repeatedly returned to figures, classical references and earlier ideas; his changes were not a simple march towards abstraction.
Beyond the studio
He also made sculpture, prints, ceramics and stage designs. His career helped expand both the materials of modern art and public expectations of what an artist could do.
Works across a career
Selected examples, not a complete catalogue. Read date ranges and attributions before inferring a career sequence.
Reading the selected works together
The selected works show a Cubist painting beside a collage and a later sculpture: different media, rather than one style replacing another.
- 01
Paris, winter 1911-12
Paris, winter 1911-12
"Ma Jolie"
- Material / technique
- Oil on canvas
- Attribution / role
- Collection / source
- The Museum of Modern Art
Artist-wide context
He broke objects into planes and later added real paper, asking how an image relates to the things around us.
- 02
1912
1912
Head of a Man with a Hat
- Material / technique
- Collage
- Attribution / role
- See the museum attribution
- Collection / source
- MoMA
Pasted material changes how a drawn image relates to the real world.
- 03
1932
1932
Head of a Woman
- Material / technique
- Sculpture
- Attribution / role
- See the museum attribution
- Collection / source
- MoMA
The subject becomes a volume to explore from more than one direction.
Materials, marks and colour
Media and surface
Paint, pasted paper, found materials and clay each demanded a different method.
Marks and structure
Bodies can be drawn with flowing outlines or broken into intersecting planes.
Palette and light
Blue and pink tonal groups, muted Cubist browns and later bright contrasts serve different purposes.