Picasso, Pablo Ruiz y

Picasso, Pablo Ruiz y (1881-1973), Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, draughtsman, designer, and ceramicist who spent most of his career in France. He was the most famous and prolific artist of the 20th century and exercised enormous influence on his contemporaries.

II. Early Life and Work
Picasso was born in Málaga on October 25, 1881, the first child of a middle-class family. His father José Ruiz Blasco was a mediocre painter who earned his living as a teacher of drawing. Like many Spaniards, Picasso took his mother's family name as his surname.

Picasso showed artistic talent at an early age. His first surviving drawings were done when he was nine. By his early teens, it was clear that he was exceptionally gifted. In 1895 his family had moved to Barcelona, and from 1896 to 1897 he studied at the School of Fine Arts there. His large academic canvas Science and Charity (1897, Museo Picasso, Barcelona), depicting a doctor, a nun, and a child at a sick woman's bedside, won a gold medal when it was exhibited in Málaga. He then spent a few months at the Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid, but by this time—aged only 16—he already had his own studio in Barcelona and was eagerly experimenting with a variety of styles.