Pablo Picasso (b. 1881, Málaga, Spain; d. 1973, Mougins, France), the son of academic painter José Ruiz Blasco, displayed artistic talent from an early age. He studied at the Fine Arts School in La Coruña and later at La Lonja Art Academy in Barcelona, where he frequented Els Quatre Gats, a hub for artists and intellectuals that influenced his early development. In 1901, Picasso held his first Paris exhibition at Galerie Vollard. Moving to Paris in 1904, he settled in the Bateau-Lavoir studio and built friendships with figures such as Guillaume Apollinaire and Gertrude Stein, while his style evolved from the Blue Period to the revolutionary Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907).

Picasso’s career spanned numerous artistic transformations, including Cubism, Neoclassicism, and Surrealism. He experimented with sculpture at Château de Boisgeloup in the 1930s and created masterpieces such as Guernica (1937), a powerful response to the Spanish Civil War. Following World War II, Picasso spent his later years in the south of France, where his works reflected themes of artistic legacy and personal introspection. Among the many exhibitions held during his lifetime, key retrospectives include those at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1939), and the Grand Palais, Paris (1966). Picasso passed away in 1973 and was laid to rest at Château de Vauvenargues, near Mount Saint-Victoire, immortalized in Cézanne’s paintings.