The early work of Picasso reveals a remarkable ability to fuse his own ideas with those of the great masters as well as a diverse range of others. This is a skill he would develop further as a mature artist. Combined with it, his immense productivity took the ideas over and above the norm.
It is believed that he produced around 147,000 pieces in his career. The staggering body of work consists of 13,500 paintings, 100,000 prints and engravings, 300 sculptures and ceramics, and 34,000 illustrations. Of all those, “Guernica” (1937), is one of Picasso’s best known works.
The painting was his direct reaction to the Nazi attack on the Spanish village of Guernica in 1937. Orchestrated by Goring, the bombing was at first meant as a morbid ‘birthday present’ for Hitler but materialised some some days after. To this also Picasso reacted.
After the painting’s first showings, Picasso decreed that it would not become Spanish property until the end of Fascism. The explicit opposition of Hitler would later make Picasso an open target, as German forces occupied Paris at the onset of the war. The monumental work did in the end find permanent home in Museo Sofia, Madrid.
Even during those difficult times when materials became scarce Picasso never ceased to work and created works from cut pieces of metal sheets, wood and cardboard. Anomalies like the cardboard guitar, with the addition of wire paper and string were birthed from nothing. Famously a bicycle seat transformed into a bull’s head, too from nothing, came as one of his most complete sculptures. It now resides permanently in Paris and the cardboard guitar, in MoMA, New York.
Pablo Picasso’s art would prove again and again to be without limit. Testament to this also is Chicago’s most recognised landmark. Standing at 50 feet tall, is the cubist structure which Picasso created and donated to the city in 1967.
His many themes and styles continue to keep us engrossed. The work which he nourished with his loves, contempts, torments and his whims, is alive with them today. Picasso had succeeded in pushing the boundaries of his art beyond those of ordinary perception, in that clear sense was retained. And so the journey of discovery is enjoyed and cherished to this day.
And not surprising that the works of a century’s genius have fetched some of the highest prices ever known. Picasso’s signed prints in limited edition are highly sought by collectors. The lithograph and linoprint portfolios published during his own lifetime, each adorn the onlooker with that aura of something living in them. True then that if we are continuing to journey to the outer bounds of how Picasso saw the world, they are by definition, living works.
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