Pablo Picasso would have been 133 years old today if he’d secretly been a vampire. The Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright spent most of his adult life in France and is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture (whatever that is), the co-invention of collage, and remains one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century.
Pablo’s first word was also said to be “piz” — the short form of “lápiz” the Spanish word for ‘pencil.’ Fitting, eh?
We present to you a tiny selection of pencil drawings by the grand maestro himself.
Happy Birthday Pab.
Nudes. 1905.
Portraits. 1918.
Moissoneurs. 1919. (We’re not so sure about this one but according to the Internet it is most assuredly in pencil and would have been the study for the more colourful final Sleeping Peasants executed in watercolour, gouache and pencil.)
Pierrot. 1919.
Portrait. 1906.
Tete de Femme. 1906.
“Odalisque” – A 1951 portrait of his former lover Geneviève Laporte.
(NOTE: Geneviève Laporte was a French philanthropist, documentary filmmaker, artists’ model, poet and author of sixteen books. She was also a French resistance fighter against Germany. Geneviève made a small fortune when she sold the drawings amassed from Picasso during their years together en amour. She used the funds to open the foundation “Genevieve Laporte de Pierrebourg, Pour la Defense de la Nature et des Animaux” with the Fondation de France. Pablo, it appears, had great taste in women as well.)
Femme Couché. 1954.
Tête (July 3, 1972). One of Picasso’s later self-portraits before his death on April 8, 1973.
