On April 8, 1973, the famous Spanish and French artist diedPablo Picasso.

Surname

Picasso was born on October 25, 1881 in the family of an art teacher. Father with early childhood introduced his son to art. According to legend, Picasso's father was so amazed by the boy's technique that he once exclaimed: "Now I give up painting forever!" Picasso received two surnames from both parents, but gained fame under the surname of his mother, whose father was an Italian who emigrated to Spain. Since Picasso spent a large period of his life in France, his surname in Russia is often pronounced with an accent on the last vowel, although in reality it should be pronounced with an emphasis on "a".

Pablo Picasso. self-portrait

The most popular

The Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, considered the best in Spain, exclusively embarrassed the young master with his academicism, so he left his studies and began to independently study the work of great artists. Picasso's own work soon turned the idea of ​​art upside down. According to expert estimates, Pablo Picasso is the most "expensive" artist in the world. Among the thieves of paintings, the masters are the most desirable. And it's not just that. According to polls conducted in 2009 by The Times, Pablo Picasso - the best of the artists who have lived in the last 100 years. For 91 years of his life, he created more than 20 thousand works. Picasso's first exhibition took place in Barcelona when the artist was 17 years old.

Pablo Picasso. Avignon maidens

Creation

Pablo Picasso is considered the founder of Cubism, and his 1907 painting The Maidens of Avignon is called the starting point contemporary art. Constantly looking for new forms artistic expressiveness, he said that the most dangerous thing for a successful creator is to start copying himself, because this leads to creative sterility. Work on the scenery for Picasso brought together with his first wife, Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova. During the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939, German fascist aviation almost wiped out the quiet and peaceful town of Guernica, known for its rarest monuments of ancient culture. Picasso was so struck by such wildness that he created an 8-meter canvas "Guernica". During World War II, in occupied Paris, the Gestapo asked the artist if he had made Guernica. He replied: "No, you did it." The great genius died of cardiac arrest, which occurred against the backdrop of pneumonia. By that time, he had a multi-million dollar fortune and several personal castles.

Pablo Ruiz y Picasso, full name- Pablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuseno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisima Trinidad Martir Patricio Ruiz and Picasso Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Mártir Patricio Ruiz y Picasso; October 25, 1881 (18811025), Malaga, Spain - April 8, 1973, Mougins, France) - Spanish and French artist, sculptor, graphic artist, theater artist, ceramist and designer.

The founder of cubism (together with Georges Braque and Juan Gris), in which a three-dimensional body was depicted in an original manner as a series of planes combined together. Picasso worked a lot as a graphic artist, sculptor, ceramist, etc. He brought to life a lot of imitators and had an exceptional influence on the development of fine arts in the 20th century. According to the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Picasso created about 20 thousand works during his life.

According to expert estimates, Picasso is the most "expensive" artist in the world: in 2008, official sales of his works alone amounted to $262 million. On May 4, 2010, Picasso's "Nude, Green Leaves and Bust", sold at Christie's for $106,482,000, became the most expensive piece of art in the world at the time.

On May 11, 2015, a new absolute record was set at the Christie's auction for works of art sold at public auction - Pablo Picasso's painting "Women of Algeria (version O)" went for a record $179,365,000.

According to a poll of 1.4 million readers conducted by The Times in 2009, Picasso is the best artist among those who have lived in the last 100 years. Also, his paintings take first place in terms of "popularity" among the kidnappers.

According to the Spanish tradition, Picasso received two surnames from the first surnames of his parents: his father - Ruiz and his mother - Picasso. The full name that the future artist received at baptism is Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuseno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano (Crispiniano) de la Santisima Trinidad Martir Patricio Ruiz and Picasso. The surname of Picasso by his mother, under which the artist gained fame, is of Italian origin: Picasso's mother's great-grandfather Tommaso moved to Spain in early XIX century from the town of Sori in the province of Genoa. Picasso was born in the house on Malaga's Merced Square, which now houses the artist's house-museum and the foundation that bears his name.

Picasso began to draw from childhood, he received his first lessons in artistic skill from his father, art teacher Jose Ruiz Blasco, and soon succeeded greatly in this. At the age of 8, he painted his first serious oil painting, "Picador", from which he did not part throughout his life.

In 1891, Don José received a position as a drawing teacher in A Coruña, and the young Pablo moved with his family to the north of Spain, where he studied at the local art school (1894-1895).

Subsequently, the family moved to Barcelona, ​​and in 1895 Picasso entered the La Lonja School of Fine Arts. Pablo was only fourteen, so he was too young to enter La Longha. However, at the insistence of his father, he was allowed to take the entrance exams on a competitive basis. Picasso passed all the exams with flying colours, and entered La Longha. At first he signed his father's name Ruiz Blasco, but then he chose his mother's surname - Picasso.

In early October 1897, Picasso left for Madrid, where he entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando. Picasso used his stay in Madrid mainly for a detailed study of the collection of the Prado Museum, and not for studying at the academy with its classical traditions, where Picasso was cramped and bored.

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Pablo Picasso(full name - Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuseno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Ruiz and Picasso) is a Spanish painter, sculptor, graphic artist, theater artist, ceramist and designer.

He said that he portrays the world not as he sees it, but as he represents it. This is much more valuable, this is the highest creativity. His works are recognized as the most sought after and turned out to be the most expensive in the world.

short biography

Pablo Ruiz Picasso was born October 25, 1881 in Malaga, Spain. Pablo was the son of an art teacher Jose Ruiz, paints and brushes accompanied him from childhood.

Pablo began to make clear pencil sketches very early. Life in the south of Spain, in the colorful ancient Malaga, where bullfights gathered almost all the inhabitants of the city, the bright colors of nature left their mark on his work.

The beginning of creativity

My first oil painting on wood "Picador" Picasso wrote at the age of 8, dedicating it to a bullfight. He never parted with her - she was his talisman. And in general, if he liked some thing, he became its slave, for example, he wore out his favorite shirts to holes. He was a dark-eyed, stocky, southern-impulsive boy, overly ambitious and very superstitious.

One day, the father asked his 12-year-old son to complete a picture with doves. Picasso was so carried away that he created his own painting. When her father saw her, he froze in surprise. He could not come to his senses for a long time, and then he gave his son a palette, paints and no longer took on them, leaving the painting.

Education and first successes

When the family moved to Barcelona in 1894, Pablo entered the school of fine arts. His work began to sign the name of his mother - Picasso. In 1897 in Madrid, he withstood the competition for the academy of San Fernando. It was then that the young man felt like a real artist.

Much in painting was easy for him, he drew quickly. Communicating with his colleagues, young artists, and comparing his paintings with others, he saw that his work is brighter, more colorful, more interesting. So gradually the realization of his exclusivity came to him.

But he understood that the path of the artist to the pinnacle of fame is difficult and long. Here ambition came in handy, the desire to conquer Olympus by all means. He subordinated his life to one idea, showed dedication, self-discipline, taking on any job that allowed him to freely create.

Trip to France

In 1900, Picasso, along with a friend went to Paris- Talented artists gathered there, new trends in art were born, the Impressionists created there. There he worked hard and studied French. A year later, he already exhibited his work in the gallery of the famous collector Vollard.

At this time, the suicide of a friend made a great impression on him. Involuntarily, a “blue” period appeared in his work, when he painted gloomy paintings, the heroes of which were beggars, blind people, alcoholics, prostitutes “Absinthe drinker”, “A beggar with a boy”.

The elongated figures in his paintings resembled the manner of the Spaniard El Greco. But over time, the “blue” period was replaced by “pink” - this is how his famous "Girl on the Ball".

The birth of cubism

Since 1904, Picasso settled in Montmartre, where he worked on the painting "Family of an acrobat with a monkey". In 1907 he met the artist Georges Braque. Soon they moved away from naturalism together, inventing new form painting - cubism.

angular volumes, geometric figures, fragments of still lifes and faces, in which something human is hardly guessed, fill his canvases (“Portrait of Fernand Olivier”, “Factory Horta de Ebro”).

After the First World War, cubism from the works of Picasso gradually began to disappear. He collaborated with the Russian ballet, made scenery and costumes for productions.

At this time, he met a Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova, who in 1918 became his wife, and in 1921 their son Paul was born. Picasso still painted his cubist still lifes, but he had already joined the graphics, created cycles of paintings for Ovid's Metamorphoses, Aristophanes' Lysistrata.

Creativity during the war

During the Spanish Civil War, Picasso, an opponent of Franco, supporting the Republicans, wrote in 1937 a series of aquatints "Dreams and Lies of General Franco". After the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica by German and Italian aircraft, after the death of people and destruction, Picasso created an artistic monument to this tragedy.

On a huge canvas, in an expressive manner typical of him, he embodied everything - grief, the suffering of people, animals, destroyed buildings.

With this picture, he reflected his fear of an unknown force, warning everyone that Civil War in Spain may spread to Europe.

During the years of the German occupation, he remained in Paris and did not stop his work, painted portraits, still lifes, in which he reflected the tragedy and hopelessness of life under the fascist regime. He hated the warrior, hated Hitler, and in 1944 became a member of the French Communist Party.

But this was a purely outward familiarization with the ideals of Marx: he did not paint ideological pictures, he did not obey the laws and charters of the party. written by him "Dove of peace" with a twig in its beak has become a symbol of liberation from fascism.

Picasso - ceramics

In 1947 Picasso got carried away by the craft and with his own hands at the factory he made decorative plates, dishes, jugs, figurines, but soon he got tired of this hobby, and he switched to portraits.

IN last years Picasso painted in different styles, imitating the Impressionists. Before his death, he admitted that most of all he liked the paintings of Modigliani.

Painting critics noted: Not everything is equal in his work, but all his works are highly valued..

Pablo Picasso is dead April 8, 1973 aged 91 in Mougins, France. He was buried next to his castle Vovenarth.

Artist Pablo Picasso Born in Spain in 1881 in the family of art critic José Ruiz. Jose Ruiz was fond of painting, but as soon as he realized that a genius was growing in the family, he gave the brushes and paints to the young Pablo and became his first teacher. At the age of 13, Picasso entered the Barcelona Academy of Arts, then at the San Fernando Academy in Madrid.

After studying, Pablo Picasso moved to Paris. It was in France that the Spanish artist painted his best work. Creative biography Pablo Picasso is divided into several stages.

blue period. The paintings of this period are made mainly in cold blue-green tones. Heroes - old people, poor mothers and children. The artist himself at this time is poor and unhappy.

pink period. The paintings become more cheerful, they are dominated by pink and orange tones. During this period, Fernanda Olivier appears in the life of Pablo Picasso - beloved and muse.

African period. Departure from the image of a specific person, African motifs appear.

Cubism. The objects depicted in the paintings are, as it were, built from cubes. Art critics have not accepted cubism, but the paintings are selling remarkably well.

Neoclassicism. Colors are brighter, images are clearer. The first marriage to the ballerina Olga Khokhlova, the birth of a son.

Surrealism. A clear imprint on the work of family problems: a series of portraits of a woman. New love, the birth of a daughter. Passion for sculpture.

Pablo Picasso: artist, millionaire, long-liver.

After the war Pablo Picasso meets Francoise Gilot, they have two children. Françoise is a "flower woman" in the creative and personal life of the artist. Pablo Picasso created the famous Dove of Peace in 1949.

At 80, Picasso marries Jacqueline Roque, who became his last muse and looked after him until his death. Pablo Picasso died in 1973, lived for 92 years and created over 80,000 works.

Pablo Picasso is a talented artist, he was considered the best among those who have lived in the last century. Everything that concerns the artist himself has never been easy ... His unusual fate - biography was programmed from the very moment of his birth: October 25, 1881 in house 15 on Plaza de la Merced in Malaga. The child was born dead. His uncle, Dr. Salvador, who was present at the birth, acted in this fatal situation in the most shocking way - he calmly lit a Havana cigar and exhaled acrid smoke into the baby's face. Everyone screamed in horror - including the newborn yelled.

Childhood and youth

At baptism, the baby was named Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuseno Maria de los Remedios Crispin Crispignano de la Santisima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso. According to Spanish custom, parents included in this list the names of all their distant ancestors. Among them in this impoverished noble family were both the archbishop of Lima and the viceroy of Peru. There was only one artist in the family - Pablo's father. Jose Ruiz, however, did not achieve any significant success in this field. He eventually became the caretaker of the municipal art museum with a meager salary and a bunch of bad habits. Therefore, the family rested mainly on the mother of little Pablo - the energetic and strong-willed Maria Picasso Lopez.

Fate did not spoil this woman. Her father, Don Francisco Picasso Guardena, was considered a wealthy man in Malaga - he owned vineyards on the slopes of Mount Gibralfaro. But, after hearing stories about America, he left his wife and three daughters in Malaga and went to make money in Cuba, where he soon died of yellow fever. As a result, his family was forced to earn a living by washing and sewing. At the age of 25, Maria married Don Jose, a year later her first child Pablo was born, followed by two sisters, Dolores and Conchita. But Pablo was still the favorite child.

According to Dona Maria, "he was so handsome, like an angel and a demon at the same time, that you couldn't take your eyes off him." It was the mother who formed in the character of Pablo the unshakable self-confidence that accompanied him all his life. “If you are a soldier. - she said to the baby, - then you will certainly rise to the rank of general, and if you become a monk, then you will become the Pope. This sincere admiration for the child was shared with his mother and his grandmother, and two aunts who moved to live in their house. Pablo, who was brought up surrounded by women who adored him, said that from childhood he was used to the fact that there should always be loving woman ready to fulfill his every whim.

Another childhood impression in the biography of Pablo, which radically influenced Picasso's entire life, was the earthquake of 1884. Half of the city was destroyed, more than six hundred citizens died, thousands were injured. Pablo remembered for the rest of his life the ominous night when his father miraculously managed to pull him out from under the ruins of his home. Few people guessed that the torn and angular lines of cubism are an echo of that very earthquake when the familiar world crumbled into pieces.

Pablo started drawing at the age of six. “There was a statue in the hallway at home. Hercules with a club, Picasso said. - Here, I sat down and drew this Hercules. And it was not a child's drawing, it was quite realistic. Of course, don Jose immediately saw in Pablo the successor of his work and began to teach his son the basics of painting and drawing. Pablo remembered the hard drill of his father, who for days on end "put his hand" to his son, long years. At the age of 65, having visited an exhibition of children's drawings, he bitterly remarked: “When I was as old as these children, I could draw like Raphael. It took me many years to learn how to draw like these kids!”

In 1891, 10-year-old Pablo began attending painting courses in A Coruña. where he was placed by his father, who received a teaching position there. Pablo did not study in A Coruña for long. At the age of 13, he considered himself independent enough to live without his parents, who really did not like his numerous novels, including those with young school teachers. Moreover, Pablo studied poorly, and his father had to beg the director of the school, who was familiar with him, not to expel his son. In the end, Pablo himself left school and went to Barcelona to enter the Academy of Arts.

He entered not without difficulty - the teachers did not believe that the pictures presented to them for viewing were painted not by an adult man, but by a boy who was 14 years old. Pablo got very angry when he was called "boy". Already at the age of 14, he was a frequenter of brothels, which at that time were many near the Academy of Arts. “Sex from a young age was my favorite pastime,” Picasso admitted. We Spaniards are mass in the morning, bullfighting in the afternoon and a brothel late in the evening.”

As his classmate Manuel Pallares later recalled from a biography of that time, once Pablo lived for a week in one of the brothels and, as payment for his stay, painted the walls of a brothel with erotic frescoes. At the same time, night trips to brothels did not in the least prevent Pablo from devoting all his days to religious painting. For a young artist even commissioned several paintings to decorate the nunnery. One of them - "Science and Mercy" - was awarded a diploma at the National Exhibition in Madrid. Unfortunately, most of these paintings perished during the Spanish Civil War.

And yet, fellow students recalled the biography of their friend, Pablo was constantly in love with someone. His first love was called Rosita del Oro. She was more than ten years older than him and worked as a dancer in a popular Barcelona cabaret. Rosita, like many women of Picasso later, recalled that Pablo struck her with his "magnetic" look, literally hypnotized her. This hypnosis" worked for five whole years. In the memory of Picasso, Rosita remained the only woman who, after parting, did not say nasty things about him.

They broke up when Pablo went to Madrid to enter the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts, considered at that time the most advanced art school in all of Spain. He entered there very easily, but stayed at the Academy for only 7 months. The teachers recognized the talent of the young man, but could not cope with his character: Pablo fell into a rage every time he was told how and what to draw.

As a result, he spent most of the first six months of training "under arrest" - there was a special punishment cell for delinquent students at the San Fernando Academy. In the seventh month of his "imprisonment", during which Pablo made friends with the same obstinate student like him, Carles Casagemas, the son of the Consul of the United States in Barcelona, ​​a typical representative of the "golden youth", who also flaunts his homosexual inclinations, he decided leave the country.

Live Cezanne in Spain, - he said, - he probably would have been shot at all ... ”Together with Casagemas, they went to Paris - to Montmartre, where, as they said, real Art and Freedom reign.

The money for Pablo's trip, 300 pesetas, was given by his father. He himself was once going to conquer Paris and really wanted the whole world to know the name Ruiz. When rumors reached him that, being in Paris. Pablo started signing his works maiden name mother - Picasso Jos Ruiz had a heart attack.

“Can you imagine me being Ruiz? - Many years later, Picasso justified himself, - Or Diego Jose Ruiz? Or Juan Nepomuseno Ruiz? No, my mother's surname always seemed better to me than my father's surname. This surname seemed strange, and it had a double "s", which is rare in Spanish surnames, because Picasso is an Italian surname. And besides, have you ever noticed the double “s” in the names of Matisse, Poussin?”

From the first time, Picasso failed to conquer Paris. Casagemas, with whom Picasso shared an apartment on Kolechkur Street, already on the second day after his arrival, having forgotten about all his “homosexual chic”, fell in love with the model Germaine Florentin without memory. She was in no hurry to reciprocate the ardent Spaniard. As a result, Carles fell into a terrible depression, and the young artists, having forgotten the purpose of their visit, spent two months in unrestrained drunkenness. After that, Pablo scooped up his friend in an armful and went with him back to Spain, where he tried to bring him back to life. In February 1901, Carles, without saying anything to Pablo, went to Paris, where he tried to shoot Germain, and then committed suicide.

This event shocked Pablo so much that, returning to Paris in April 1901, he first went to the fatal beauty Germaine and unsuccessfully tried to persuade her to become his muse. That's right - not a mistress, but a muse, since Picasso simply did not have money even to feed her lunch. There wasn’t even enough money for paints - just then his brilliant “blue period” was born, and blue and gray paints forever became synonymous with poverty for Pablo.

He lived in those years in a dilapidated house on Ravignan Square, nicknamed Bato Lavoir, that is, "Laundry Barge". In this barn without light and heat huddled a commune of impoverished artists, mostly emigrants from Spain and Germany. No one locked the doors to Bato Lavoir, all the property was common. Both models and girlfriends were common. Of the dozens of women who then shared a bed with Picasso, the artist himself remembered only two.

The first was a certain Madeleine (her only portrait is now kept in the Tate Gallery in London). As Picasso himself said, in December 1904, Madeleine became pregnant, and he seriously considered marrying. But because of the eternal cold in Bateau Lavoir, the pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, and Picasso soon fell in love with a stately girl with green eyes, the first beauty of Bateau Lavoir. Everyone knew her as Fernande Olivier, although her real name was Amélie Lat. It was rumored that she was the illegitimate daughter of a very noble man.

In Bateau Lavoir, where she made a living by posing for artists, Fernanda got to fifteen years after the death of her mother.

Opium helped bring them closer. In September 1905, Pablo invited Fernanda to celebrate the sale of one of his paintings - galleries began to be interested in his work - to a literary club in Montparnasse, where both future geniuses and successful mediocrity gathered. After absinthe, Pablo suggested that the girl smoke a pipe of a drug that was fashionable at that time, and in the morning she found herself in Picasso's bed. “Love flared up, overflowing with passion,” she wrote in her diary, which many years later she published in the form of a book “Loving Picasso”. - He conquered my heart with a sad, pleading look of his huge eyes, which pierced me against my will ...

Personal life

Having got Fernanda, the jealous Picasso first of all got a reliable lock and, leaving Bateau Lavoir, every time he locked his mistress in his room. Fernanda didn't mind because she didn't have shoes and Picasso didn't have the money to buy them for her. And it was hard to find a lazier person in all of Paris than she was. Fernanda could not go out for weeks, lie on the couch, have sex or read pulp novels. Every morning, Picasso stole milk and croissants for her, which the pedlars left at the door of the good bourgeois in the next street.

Poverty receded, and the depressive "blue" period in the work of Picasso gently turned into a calmer "pink" when wealthy collectors became interested in the paintings of the young Spaniard. The first was Gertrude Stein, the daughter of an American millionaire who fled to Paris for the delights of the bohemian life. However, she paid little money for Picasso's paintings, but she introduced him to Henri Matisse, Modigliani and other artists who set the tone in art.

The second millionaire was a Russian merchant Sergei Shchukin. They met in the same 1905 in Montmartre, where Pablo drew caricatures on passers-by for a couple of francs. They drank to an acquaintance, after which they went to Picasso's studio, where the Russian guest bought a couple of paintings by the artist - for one hundred francs. For Picasso, this was a lot of money. It was Shchukin, who regularly bought Picasso's paintings, finally pulled him out of poverty and helped him to his feet. The Russian merchant collected 51 Picasso paintings - this is the world's largest collection of the artist's works, and we owe it to Shchukin that Picasso's originals hang both in the Hermitage and in the Museum fine arts them. Pushkin.

But with prosperity came the end of family happiness. Fernanda briefly enjoyed life in a luxurious apartment on the Boulevard Clichy, which had a real piano, mirrors, a maid and a cook. Moreover, Fernanda herself took the first step towards parting. The thing is. that in 1907 Picasso was carried away by a new direction in art - cubism, and presented to the public his painting "Avignon Girls". The picture caused a real scandal in the press: “This is a canvas stretched on a stretcher, rather controversial, but surely stained with paint, and the purpose of this canvas is unknown,” wrote the Parisian newspapers. - There is nothing that could be of interest. You can guess the roughly drawn female figures in the picture. What are they for? What do they want to express or at least demonstrate? Why did the author do this?

But an even bigger scandal broke out at Picasso's house. Fernanda, who was not at all interested in fashion trends in art, took this picture as a mockery of herself personally. Say, using it as a model for the picture. Pablo specifically, "out of jealousy, disgustingly mutilated her face and body, which so many artists admired." And Fernanda decided to "revenge": she began to secretly leave home and pose for artists in Bateau Lavoir in the nude. It is not difficult to imagine the fury of the jealous Picasso, who did not even allow the thought that his beloved would pose for another artist when he saw portraits of his girlfriend in the nude genre in Montmartre.

Since then they living together turned into an ongoing scandal. Picasso tried to be at home as little as possible, spending most of his time in the Hermitage cafe, where he met Polish artist Ludwig Marcoussis and his girlfriend, petite 27-year-old Eva Güell. She - unlike Fernanda - was calm about modern painting and willingly posed for Pablo for his portraits in the style of cubism. One of them, which Picasso called "My Beauty", she took as a declaration of love and reciprocated.

So when Picasso and Fernanda Olivier parted ways in 1911, Eva Güell became the mistress of the artist's new house on Boulevard Raspail. However, they rarely visited Paris, only when exhibitions were held, in which Picasso was increasingly invited to participate. They traveled with great pleasure in Spain and England, lived either in Seurat, at the foot of the Pyrenees, or in Avignon. It was, as they said, "an endless pre-wedding journey." It ended in the spring of 1915, when Pablo and Eva decided to get married, but did not have time. Eva fell ill with tuberculosis and died. “My life has become hell. - Pablo wrote in a letter to Gertrude Stein. "Poor Eve is dead, I'm in unbearable pain..."

Picasso was very upset by the death of his beloved. He stopped taking care of himself, drank heavily, smoked opium and did not get out of brothels. This went on for almost two years, until the poet Jean Cocteau persuaded Picasso to take part in his new theatrical project. Cocteau had long collaborated with Sergei Diaghilev, the owner of the famous Russian Ballet, painted posters for the Nijinsky and Karsavina entreprise, composed the libretto, but then he came up with the Parade ballet, a strange action without a plot, and there was less music in it than street noises .

Until that day, Picasso was indifferent to ballet, but Cocteau's proposal interested him. In February 1917, he went to Rome, where at that moment Russian ballerinas were fleeing from the horrors of the Civil War. There, in Italy, Picasso found a new love. It was Olga Khokhlova, the daughter of a Russian army officer and one of the most beautiful ballerinas in the troupe.

Picasso was carried away by Olga with all his characteristic temperament. After the extravagant Fernanda and the temperamental Eva, Olga attracted him with her calmness, adherence to traditional values ​​and classical, almost antique beauty.

“Be careful,” Diaghilev warned him, “you have to marry Russian girls.”

“You are joking,” the artist answered him, confident that he would always remain the master of the situation. But everything turned out just as Diaghilev had said.

Already at the end of 1917, Pablo took Olga to Spain to introduce her to her parents. Dona Maria warmly received the Russian girl, went to performances with her participation and once warned her: "With my son, who was created only for himself and for no one else, no woman can be happy." But Olga did not heed this warning.

On July 12, 1918, a wedding ceremony was held at the Alexander Nevsky Orthodox Cathedral in Paris. They spent their honeymoon in each other's arms in Biarritz, forgetting about war, revolution, ballet and painting.

“On their return, they settled in a two-story apartment on La Boesi Street,” Picasso’s friend, the Hungarian photographer and artist Gyula Halas, better known as Brassai, described their life in the book “Meetings with Picasso”. - Picasso took one floor for his studio, the other was given to his wife. She turned it into a classic secular salon with cozy canapés, curtains and mirrors. Spacious dining room with a large, extendable table, serving table, in each corner - a round table on one leg; the living room is designed in white tones, in the bedroom there is a double bed trimmed with copper.

Everything was thought out to the smallest detail, and there was not a speck of dust anywhere, the parquet and furniture shone. This apartment did not fit in at all with the artist’s habitual lifestyle: there was neither the unusual furniture that he loved so much, nor one of those strange objects with which he liked to surround himself, nor things scattered around as needed. Olga jealously guarded the possessions, which she considered her own, from the influence of a bright and strong personality Picasso. And even the hanging paintings by Picasso from the Cubist period, in large beautiful frames, looked like they belonged to a wealthy collector ... "

Picasso himself gradually turned into a prosperous bourgeois with all the outward trappings of success befitting this position. He bought a Spanish-Suiza limousine, hired a chauffeur in livery, began to wear expensive suits made by famous Parisian tailors. The artist led a stormy social life, not missing premieres at the theater and opera, attending receptions and soirees - always accompanied by his beautiful and refined wife: he was at the zenith of his "secular" period.

The crown of this period was the birth in February 1921 of the son Paolo. This event excited Picasso - he made endless drawings of his son and wife, marking on them not only the day, but also the hour when he painted them. All of them are made in the neoclassical style, and the women in his image resemble the Olympian deities. Olga treated the child with an almost morbid passion and adoration.

But over time, this beautiful, measured life began to seem like a curse to Picasso. “The more he got rich, the more he envied that other Picasso, who once wore a mechanic’s robe and huddled with Fernanda in the windswept Bato Lavoire,” wrote Brassai. “Soon Picasso left the upper apartment and moved to live in his studio on the lower floor. And, without a doubt, never before has any "respectable" apartment been so unrespectable.

It consisted of four or five rooms, each with a fireplace with a marble board, over which there was a mirror. The furniture from the rooms was taken out, and instead of it, paintings, cardboards, packages, forms from sculptures, bookshelves, piles of papers piled up ... The doors of all the rooms were open, or maybe just taken off their hinges, thanks to which this huge apartment turned into into one large space, divided into nooks and crannies, each of which was assigned to perform a certain work.

The parquet floor, which has not been rubbed for a long time, is covered with a carpet of cigarette butts ... Picasso's easel stood in the largest and brightest room - no doubt, once there was a living room; it was the only room in any way furnished in this strange apartment. Madame Picasso never entered this workshop, and since Picasso did not let anyone in except for a few friends, the dust could behave as it pleased without fear that female hand going to put things in order."

Olga felt how her husband was gradually returning to his inner world- the world of art, to which she had no access. From time to time, she staged violent scenes of jealousy, in response, Picasso became even more withdrawn into himself. “She wanted too much from me,” Picasso later said of Olga. “It was the worst period of my life.” He began to vent his irritation in painting, depicting his wife either in the form of an old horse or an evil vixen. Nevertheless, Picasso did not want a divorce.

After all, then, under the terms of their marriage contract, they would have to share equally all their fortune, and most importantly, his paintings. Therefore, Olga until her death remained the official wife of the artist. She claimed that she never stopped loving Picasso. He answered her: “You love me, as they love a piece of chicken, trying to gnaw it to the bone!”

Marie-Therese became his "woman on Thursdays" - Picasso came to her only once a week. This continued until 1935, when she gave him a daughter, Maya. Then he brought Marie-Therese with her daughter to the house and introduced Olga: "This child is a new work by Picasso."

It seemed that after such a statement, a breakup was inevitable. Olga left their apartment, moving to a villa in the suburbs of Paris. Many years later, Picasso claimed that politics added fuel to the fire in their conflict with his wife - in those years, a civil war was unfolding in Spain, and the artist began to support the communists and republicans. Olga, as befits a noblewoman who suffered from the Bolsheviks, was on the side of the monarchists. However, the divorce never came to fruition. Picasso also did not fulfill his promise to Marie-Therese - Maya never received her father's surname, and a dash remained in her birth certificate in the column "father". However, after a while, Picasso agreed ... to become Maya's godfather.

In 1936, another change took place in the biography of Picasso's personal life. Dora Maar, a photographer, artist and just a bohemian party girl, became his new mistress. They met in the cafe "Two capsules". Picasso admired her hands - Dora amused herself by putting her palm on the table and quickly thrusting a knife between her outstretched fingers. Several times she touched the skin, but seemed not to notice the blood and felt no pain. Amazed, Picasso immediately fell head over heels in love.

In addition, Dora was the only one of all the women of Picasso who understood a lot about painting and sincerely admired the paintings of Pablo. It was Dora who created a unique photo essay about the creative process of Picasso, capturing on camera all the ataps of the creation of the epoch-making canvas “Guernica”, dedicated to the town destroyed by the Nazis in the Basque Country.

Later, however, it turned out that, along with these and other advantages. Dora also had one, but a very significant drawback - she was extremely nervous. Slightly she burst into tears. “I could never write her smiling,” Picasso later recalled, “for me, she was always the Weeping Woman.”

Therefore, the already depressed Picasso preferred to keep his new mistress at a distance. Picasso's house was run by men - his chauffeur Marcel and his institute friend Sabartes, who became the artist's personal secretary. "Those who believed that social life the artist forgot about his young years, then independence, about the joys of friendship, they were deeply mistaken, Brassai wrote. - When problems surrounded Picasso, when he was exhausted from constant family scandals to such an extent that he even stopped writing, he called Sabartes, who had long since moved to the United States with his wife. Picasso asked Sabartes to return to Europe and settle with him, with him...

It was a cry of despair: the artist was going through the most difficult crisis in his life. And in November, Sabartes arrived and set to work: he began to disassemble Picasso's books and papers, retyping his handwritten poems on a typewriter. Since that time, they have become inseparable, like a traveler and his shadow ... "

The three of them survived the Second world war. Despite the fact that the Nazis called his paintings "decadent" or "Bolshevik daubs", Picasso decided to take a chance and stay in Paris. “In the occupied city, life was hard even for Picasso: he could not get gasoline for the car and coal to heat the workshop. Sabartes wrote. - And he, like everyone else, had to adapt to military reality: stand in lines, ride the subway or bus, which rarely ran and were always packed. In the evenings, one could almost always meet him in the hotly heated Cafe de Flor, among friends, where he felt at home, if not better ...

In the "Cafe de Flor" Picasso met Francoise Gilot. He approached her table with a large vase full of cherries and offered to help herself. A conversation ensued. It turned out that the girl quit her studies at the Sorbonne for the sake of painting. For this, her father kicked her out of the house, but Francoise did not lose heart. She earned her living and education by giving riding lessons. "Such beautiful woman cannot be an artist in any way, ”the master exclaimed and invited her to his place ... to take a bath. In occupied Paris, hot water was a luxury. “However,” he added. - if you want to see my paintings more than washing, then you better go to the museum.

Picasso was very wary of the admirers of his talent. But for Françoise, he made an exception. Brassaï wrote: “Picasso was captivated by Françoise’s small mouth, plump lips, thick hair that framed her face, huge and slightly asymmetrical green eyes, a teenage thin waist and rounded outlines of forms. Picasso was subdued by Françoise and allowed her to idolize him. He loved her as if the feeling had come to him for the first time... But always greedy and always satiated, like a Seville seducer, he never allowed himself to be enslaved by a woman, freeing himself from her power in creativity. For him, a love affair was not an end in itself, but a necessary stimulus for the realization of creative possibilities, which were immediately embodied in new paintings, drawings, engravings and sculptures.

After the war, Francoise gave birth to Picasso two children: son Claude in 1947 and daughter Paloma in 1949. It seemed that the 70-year-old artist finally found his happiness. What could not be said about his girlfriend, who eventually discovered that all previous women still continue to play a role in Pablo's life. So, if they went to the south of France in the summer, then the rest was sure to be enlivened by the presence of Olga, who showered her with streams of abuse. In Paris, Thursdays and Sundays were the days when Picasso went to visit Dora Maar or invited her to dinner himself.

As a result, in 1953, Francoise, having taken the children, left the artist. For Picasso, this was a complete surprise. Francoise stated that she "does not want to spend the rest of her life with a historical monument." This phrase soon became known throughout Paris. Above Picasso, who boasted that "no woman leaves men like him," they began to laugh.

He found salvation from shame in the arms of a new favorite - Jacqueline Rock, a 25-year-old saleswoman from a supermarket in the resort town of Vallauris, near which the artist's villa was located. Jacqueline alone raised her 6-year-old daughter Katrina and. being a very rational woman, she understood that she should not miss such a chance as to become a companion of an already middle-aged and wealthy artist. She was neither as sensual as Fernanda nor as tender as Eva, she did not have Olga's grace and Marie-Thérèse's beauty, she was not as intelligent as Dora Maar, and as talented as Françoise. But she had one huge advantage - for the sake of life with Picasso, she was ready for anything. She simply called him God. Or Monseigneur - as a bishop. She endured all his whims, depressions, suspiciousness with a smile, followed the diet and never asked for anything. For Picasso, exhausted by family strife, she became a real salvation. And his second official wife.

Olga died of cancer in 1955, freeing Picasso from the obligations of her marriage contract. The wedding of Jacqueline Rock was played in March 1961. The ceremony was distinguished by modesty - they drank only water, ate soup and chicken left over from yesterday. Future life the couple, which took place in the estate of Notre-Dame-de-Vie in Mougins, was distinguished by the same modesty and solitude. “I refuse to see people,” the artist said to his friend Brassai. -What for? For what? I would not wish such fame to anyone, even to my worst enemies. I suffer from it psychologically, I defend myself as best I can: I erect real barricades, although the doors are double-locked day and night. It was to Jacqueline's advantage - she was not going to share her genius with anyone.

Gradually, she subjugated Picasso so much that she decided almost everything for him. At first she quarreled with all his friends, then she managed to convince her husband that her children and grandchildren were just waiting for his death in order to receive an inheritance.

Last years

The last years of the artist's biography were remembered by his relatives as a real nightmare. So, the artist’s granddaughter Marina Picasso in her book “Picasso, my grandfather” recalled that the artist’s villa reminded her of an impregnable bunker surrounded by barbed wire: “Father holds my hand. Silently we approach the gates of the grandfather's mansion. The father rings the bell. Just like before, I'm afraid. The gatekeeper comes out. "Monsieur Paul, do you have a rendezvous?" “Yes,” mutters the father.

He lets go of my fingers so I don't feel his palm getting wet. “Now I’ll find out if the owner can accept you.” The gates slam shut. It's raining, but we must wait to hear what the owner has to say. As it was last Saturday. Until then, Thursday. We are overcome by guilt. The gates open again, and the watchman drops, averting his eyes: “The owner cannot receive today. Madame Jacqueline asked me to tell you that he was working ... ”When, after several attempts, his father managed to see him, he asked his grandfather for money. I stood in front of my father. My grandfather took out a pack of banknotes, and my father, like a thief, took them. Suddenly Pablo (we couldn't call him "Grandfather") started yelling, "You can't take care of your children by yourself. You can't earn your living! You can't do anything on your own! You will always be mediocre."

A few years later, these trips stopped - Picasso lost all interest in children and grandchildren. However, he also began to treat Jacqueline Roque coldly. “I will die never having loved anyone like that,” he once admitted.

“My grandfather was never interested in the fate of his loved ones. He was only concerned about his work, from which he suffered or was happy. He loved children only for their innocence in his paintings, and women for the sexual and cannibalistic impulses that they aroused in him ... Once, I was then nine years old. I fainted from exhaustion. I was taken to the doctor, and the doctor was very surprised that Picasso's granddaughter was in such a state. and wrote him a letter asking him to send me to a medical center. My grandfather didn't answer - he didn't care."

The end of the artist's life

On the morning of April 8, 1973, Pablo Picasso died of pneumonia. Shortly before his death, the artist said, “My death will be a shipwreck. When a large ship dies, everything that is around it is drawn into the funnel.

And so it happened. His grandson Pablito, despite everything, who retained boundless love for his grandfather, asked to be allowed to attend the funeral, but Jacqueline Rock refused. On the day of the funeral, Pablito drank a vial of decoloran, a bleaching chemical liquid, and burned his insides. “He died a few days later in the hospital,” Marina Picasso recalled. - All I had to do was find money for the funeral. Newspapers have already reported that the grandson of the great artist, who lived a few hundred meters from his villa in complete poverty, could not survive the death of his grandfather. We were rescued by college comrades. Without saying a word to me, they collected from their pocket money the amount needed for the funeral.”

"Every positive value has its negative value"

Two years later, Pablo's son, Paolo, died - he drank heavily, surviving the death of his own son. Marie-Thérèse Walter hanged herself in 1977. Dora Maar also died - in poverty, although many paintings given to her by Picasso were found in her apartment. She refused to sell them. Jacqueline Rock herself was dragged into the funnel. After the death of her Monsignor, she began to behave strangely - she talked to Picasso all the time as if he were alive. In October 1986, on the opening day of the artist's exhibition in Madrid, she suddenly realized that Picasso had long been gone, and put a bullet in her forehead.

Marina Picasso suggested that if her grandfather had known about these tragedies, he would not have been very worried. "Every positive value has its negative value." - the artist liked to repeat.