Pablo Picasso was Born October 25, 1881 in Malaga Spain. His family was middle-class. His father was a painter who specialized in realistic pieces of birds and other game.  He taught Pablo about figure drawing and oil painting.

    Picasso showed a passion and a skill for drawing from an early age. According to his mother, his first words were "piz, piz", a shortening of lápiz, the Spanish word for "pencil". At age 16, Picasso went to the country’s best known art school in Madrid, but he didn’t like formal instruction and stopped attending  classes quickly.

    Even though he left art school, he continued to create artwork. He worked as a draftsman, sculptor, and printmaker, but mainly as a  painter.  His work began as realistic, but changed drastically in 1901 with the death of one of his friends.  This is when his first main period of art started.  For artists, a period is what their art is called that has similar pieces.  Often artists’ works will change when they are inspired by things around them or in their life.  Picasso had 3 main periods to his work.

From 1901-1904 his work was called his “Blue Period”.  Everything appeared blue and sad.