Of course, we’re being slightly facetious with our headline – as we have a habit of being here at IN&AROUND – but in the process, we’re making a more serious point. It’s rather tragic to think that, to an entire generation of youngsters, the ‘Picasso’ name might be best known as a nameplate on the back of a compact MPV. However, the association also isn’t entirely unwarranted.
You see, while the man baptised (take a deep breath) Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso (let’s just call him Pablo Picasso from now on) was born in the distinctly Spanish city of Malaga on 25th October 1881, he went on to spend most of his adult life as an artist in France.
With this month marking the 137th anniversary of the painter, sculptor and printmaker’s birth, we thought we’d look at just a few of the reasons why this celebrated figure’s name deserves to be remembered for so much more than, say, a pleasant driving experience or decent fuel economy.
A true master over many styles and themes
The truly great artists aren’t just a dab hand at drawing and painting. Indeed, they go much further than that, continually and relentlessly experimenting, and if there is any 20th-century creative figure who utterly embodies that model of restless innovation, it simply has to be Picasso.
It was Picasso, for instance, who co-founded the entire Cubist movement with Georges Braque, this avant-garde style’s deconstruction and rearrangement of subjects and objects into abstract forms representing a decisive break from many time-honoured ways of art-making in the 1910s. So far-reaching were Cubism’s effects, that its influence was seen in such offshoot movements – well beyond French borders – as Futurism, Dada and Constructivism.
But Picasso was a leading figure behind so much more than Cubism. He is also credited as the inventor of constructed sculpture, as well as the co-inventor of the collage art style. His legendary periods – including the Blue Period (1901-1904), Rose Period (1904-1906) and African-Influenced Period (1907-1909) – have become part of art-historical lexicon, while fabled individual works such as 1907’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and 1937’s Guernica continue to capture the imaginations of art lovers the world over.
Few artists can claim such a monumental legacy
Picasso’s influence has barely wavered since his death of a heart attack near his home near Cannes in 1973. His works feature in the collections of such institutions as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg and the Tate in London. Indeed, many of you may have recently visited the latest blockbuster Picasso show on these shores, the Tate Modern’s The EY Exhibition – Picasso 1932 – Love, Fame, Tragedy.
But if you do continue to think of Citroën whenever the Picasso name is mentioned, at least take away this interesting fact: the artist’s connection with the French car manufacturer actually dates back to the 1960s, when he painted “the wreaths of peace” on a Citroën DS owned by a young Mexican journalist, Manuel Mejido.
Unfortunately, the location of this car is no longer known, as the poverty-stricken writer was forced to sell it for a mere $6,000. We reckon if it still exists, though, it might be worth a fair bit more than the average Xsara Picasso you might see from time to time parked outside the IN&AROUND offices…
