Otto abetz picasso biography

In the mid-1950s, almost five decades after they had invented cubism together, Georges Braque commented that his old friend Pablo Picasso: “used to be a great painter, now he is merely a genius.” There was, as with all the best bons mots, more than a little truth to his observation. How, after all, can a career as long and as prolific as Picasso’s be judged? By the time he died in 1973, aged 91, he had produced – by some accounts – 13,500 paintings, 300 sculptures and ceramics, 34,000 illustrations and 2,400 prints and engravings. Statistically, it is impossible that all can be great works but in their variety, abundance and inventiveness even those that aren’t bear out the second part of Braque’s claim.

Picasso’s numbers exceed those of his contemporaries – from Braque and Matisse to Pollock and Warhol. His earliest exhibited work, First Communion, was painted when he was 15 and still at art school and he never stopped. His last major set of etchings, named the “156 Suite” after the number of prints in the series, was completed less than a year before his death. It was as

Artwork Analysis: Guernica by Picasso

As the war raged on, Pablo Picasso revealed his mythical Guernica to the MoMA in 1939. He had created the piece two years earlier, but maintained that the piece would not return to Spain until democracy had been restored. It was only after Franco’s death in 1981, that the piece returned to Spain. A new constitution and democratic government was established, so the piece was sent to Madrid and hasn’t left the capital since. Therefore in order to see it, art lovers have no choice but to go to the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid. Until this happens, Artsper brings the masterpiece to you, introducing one of the most beautiful anti-war paintings in the world.

Why the Theme of War?

In 1937, the Spanish republic asked Picasso to create a large composition for the Paris International Exhibition. This request came just after the most destructive event of the Spanish civil war: the bombing of the small Basque village of Guernica. The commune was destroyed; hundreds had been killed or hurt, all of whom were innocent civilians. Picasso, who was

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1To represent a story in images does not mean to allay its topics on the surface of the canvas. On the contrary, the images themselves produce effects. Ideas that may not unleash major conflicts when communicated in written form incite unexpected responses when represented visually. Art images are not frozen in the time they were produced. We may stroll by still sculptures and serene paintings in a museum, beholding them as if they were vestiges of what has been, but their power remains, if in latent form. Their meanings can, at any instant, be reactivated in new presentations. The most seemingly harmless portrait might begin to quake before a gaze that sees in it an anomaly, a skewed meaning not anticipated by the artist.

2Images, then, bear a certain danger, a latent threat—they might spin out of control. Recent history is rife with examples of violent reactions to images (the fury unleashed by crude representations of Muhammad in late 20051); censorship of images that had been exhibited for long periods and suddenly become “dangerous” (Attorney General John Ashcroft o

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