Biography of Pablo Picasso

"Perhaps the greatest artist of all time, Pablo Picasso was born in October 1881. He began to paint at the age of 7 under his father's tuition and later studied at the Barcelona School of Fine Arts. By 1899 he had set himself up in his own studio in Barcelona. Picasso at this time was frequenting the Circulo Artistico and Les Quatre Gats, where he became closely involved with other artists of the day. The new century saw Picasso dividing his time between Madrid and Paris. He worked through his ""blue"" period and by 1905 was producing the work from his ""rose"" period. In Madrid, Picasso experimented with the Pointillist technique, producing paintings and pastels of society ladies. In 1907 Picasso met Braque, with whom he found much in common as they were both striving to achieve the same artistic effect. Working together they evolved what is now called ""analytical cubism"".  However, when the First World War broke out in 1914, Braque and Picasso were separated by a quarrel which tragically was never healed. Picasso's collection with the Diaghilev Russian Ballet in Rome in 1917 led to the return to a more traditional Picasso vision, with parallel cubist work. Following this, the influence of Roman Catholicism led to a series of paintings and drawings of monumental female nudes which were first depicted stationary, and then by 1923 in terrifying, distorting movement.