On the morning of October 25, 1881 in Malaga, Spain, a boy was born. His parents christened him Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso, and he would go on to become one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.

Most great artists manage to achieve a certain style in their most practiced medium that influences and serves as an inspiration to many generations of art lovers to come.

Picasso did this several times over as he continually reinvented himself and changed his style even after he became a famous painter. 

He pioneered the Cubism style in painting along with Georges Braque. He also invented collage and made incredible additions to Symbolism and Surrealism. His work in sculpture was greatly influential and he explored printmaking and ceramics. 

Picasso’s most influential work included those done on the concept of perspective.

The artist was famous for placing ears viewed from the left on the right cheek, superimposing different angles of a face over one another, or showing the eyes looking in different directions. The result asks the viewer to question their perspective literally and figuratively.

Picasso was responsible for a huge amount of images that defined the 20th century, whether it was Don Quixote on his camel or the images of “Guernica,” the painting that depicted the tragedies of the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.

Picasso was one of the first painters to make an overtly political statement with his painting. He brought the art form from a practice that sought to capture beauty to one that hit all emotional notes.

There is no scarcity of images created by Picasso to choose from. After all, he finished more than 20,000 paintings, prints, drawings, and sculptures. It’s likely that you have already been deeply moved by one or two of them.