Pablo Picasso

 Acrylic on canvas     59.4 X 42.0 cm / 23.4 X 16.5 inches 

Pablo Picasso is one of the artists I most admire. Co-founder of the Cubist movement with Georges Braque, he invented and contributed to so many styles and forms of expression. While best known as a leading Spanish painter, he was also a renowned sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and theatre designer.

Picasso's artworks and style varied so much over time that it is commonly grouped into distinct periods: the Blue Period (1901–1904), the Rose Period (1904–1906), the African-influenced Period (1907–1909), Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), and Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919). Later works feature elements of a neoclassical style and Surrealism. 

One of his best known and most respected paintings is Guernica which was inspired by the German aerial bombing of the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War. This painting was acquired by the Spanish government after the end of Franco fascist regime and is now on permanent exhibition in the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid.

In my portrait of Picasso, I’ve tried to capture his extraordinary creative energy and capacity to innovate. The reflective hand clasped to his forehead is burning with a passion while all around him the complexity of his ideas and innovations crowd around him. It is difficult to do justice to Picasso as the subject of a painting.

You might also be interested in my portrait of Francois Gilot, one of Picasso's many partners. You can find it in my abstract portraits collection here.

Gilot was an accomplished modern artist in her own right. As with Dora Maar, one of his prior partners who was a renowned and artistic photographer,  both women featured as his muses and models for many Picasso paintings.