Editing Pablo Picasso (section)

== Works ==

=== Style and technique ===
{{multiple image
 | align = right
 | direction = horizontal
 | total_width = 300
 | header =
 | header_align = left/right/center
 | header_background =
 | footer =
 | footer_align = left/right/center
 | footer_background =
 | width =
 | image1 = Pablo Picasso, 1901, Old Woman (Woman with Gloves), oil on cardboard, 67 x 52.1 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art.jpg
 | caption1 = Pablo Picasso, 1901, ''Old Woman (Woman with Gloves)'', oil on cardboard, 67 × 52.1&nbsp;cm, [[Philadelphia Museum of Art]]
 | image2 = Pablo Picasso, 1901-02, Femme au café (Absinthe Drinker), oil on canvas, 73 x 54 cm, Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia.jpg
 | caption2 = Pablo Picasso, 1901–02, ''Femme au café (Absinthe Drinker)'', oil on canvas, 73 × 54&nbsp;cm, [[Hermitage Museum]]
}}
<!--[[File:Pablo Picasso, 1901, Old Woman (Woman with Gloves), oil on cardboard, 67 x 52.1 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art.jpg|thumb|Pablo Picasso, 1901, ''Old Woman (Woman with Gloves)'', oil on cardboard, 67 × 52.1&nbsp;cm, [[Philadelphia Museum of Art]]]]
[[File:Pablo Picasso, 1901-02, Femme au café (Absinthe Drinker), oil on canvas, 73 x 54 cm, Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia.jpg|thumb|Pablo Picasso, 1901–02, ''Femme au café (Absinthe Drinker)'', oil on canvas, 73 × 54 cm, [[Hermitage Museum]], Saint Petersburg, Russia]]-->

Picasso was exceptionally prolific throughout his long lifetime. At his death there were more than 45,000 unsold works in his estate, comprising 1,885 paintings, 1,228 sculptures, 3,222 ceramics, 7,089 drawings, 150 sketchbooks, many thousands of prints, and numerous tapestries and rugs.<ref name=":4">Esterow, Milton (7 March 2016). [https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2016/03/picasso-multi-billion-dollar-empire-battle "The Battle for Picasso's Multi-Billion Dollar Empire"]. ''Vanity Fair''. Retrieved 29 July 2021.</ref> The most complete – but not exhaustive – catalogue of his works, the [[catalogue raisonné]] compiled by [[Christian Zervos]], lists more than 16,000 paintings and drawings.<ref>Stolz, George (3 June 2014). [https://www.artnews.com/art-news/market/zervos-picasso-catalogue-reprinted-and-priced-at-20-thousand-dollars-2446/ "The $20,000 Picasso Catalogue the Art World Was Waiting For"]. ''Artnews''. Retrieved 29 July 2021.</ref> Picasso's output was several times more prolific than most artists of his era; by at least one account, American artist [[Bob Ross]] is the only one to rival Picasso's volume, and Ross's artwork was designed specifically to be easily mass-produced quickly.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://thehustle.co/why-its-nearly-impossible-to-buy-an-original-bob-ross-painting/|title= Why it's nearly impossible to buy an original Bob Ross painting |first=Zachary|last=Crockett|work=The Hustle|date=1 May 2021|access-date=7 May 2021}}</ref>

The medium in which Picasso made his most important contribution was painting.<ref name="McQuillan"/> In his paintings, Picasso used colour as an expressive element, but relied on drawing rather than subtleties of colour to create form and space.<ref name="McQuillan"/> He sometimes added sand to his paint to vary its texture. A [[nanoprobe (device)|nanoprobe]] of Picasso's ''The Red Armchair'' (1931), in the collection of the [[Art Institute of Chicago]], by physicists at [[Argonne National Laboratory]] in 2012 confirmed art historians' belief that Picasso used common house paint in many of his paintings.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Picasso|first=Pablo|title=The Red Armchair|url=https://www.artic.edu/artworks/5357/the-red-armchair|access-date=24 May 2021|website=The Art Institute of Chicago|language=en}}</ref><ref>[[Clara Moskowitz|Moskowitz, Clara]] (8 February 2013). [http://www.livescience.com/26963-picasso-house-paint-x-rays.html "Picasso's Genius Revealed: He Used Common House Paint"], Live Science. Retrieved 9 February 2013.</ref> Much of his painting was done at night by artificial light.

Picasso's early sculptures were carved from wood or modelled in wax or clay, but from 1909 to 1928 Picasso abandoned modelling and instead made sculptural constructions using diverse materials.<ref name="McQuillan"/> An example is ''Guitar'' (1912), a relief construction made of sheet metal and wire that Jane Fluegel terms a "three-dimensional planar counterpart of Cubist painting" that marks a "revolutionary departure from the traditional approaches, modeling and carving".<ref name="rube150"/>

[[File:Picasso three musicians moma 2006.jpg|thumb|Pablo Picasso, 1921, ''Three Musicians'', oil on canvas, 200.7 × 222.9 cm, [[Museum of Modern Art]], New York. Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund]]

From the beginning of his career, Picasso displayed an interest in subject matter of every kind,<ref name="cirl164"/> and demonstrated a great stylistic versatility that enabled him to work in several styles at once. For example, his paintings of 1917 included the [[pointillist]] ''Woman with a Mantilla'', the Cubist ''Figure in an Armchair'', and the naturalistic ''Harlequin'' (all in the [[Museu Picasso]], Barcelona). In 1919, he made a number of drawings from postcards and photographs that reflect his interest in the stylistic conventions and static character of posed photographs.<ref name="Cowling&Mundy_208"/> In 1921 he simultaneously painted several large neoclassical paintings and two versions of the Cubist composition ''[[Three Musicians (Picasso)|Three Musicians]]'' (Museum of Modern Art, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art).<ref name="Cowling&Mundy_201"/> In an interview published in 1923, Picasso said, "The several manners I have used in my art must not be considered as an evolution, or as steps towards an unknown ideal of painting ... If the subjects I have wanted to express have suggested different ways of expression I have never hesitated to adopt them."<ref name="Cowling&Mundy_201"/>

Although his Cubist works approach abstraction, Picasso never relinquished the objects of the real world as subject matter. Prominent in his Cubist paintings are forms easily recognized as guitars, violins, and bottles.<ref name="cirl158"/> When Picasso depicted complex narrative scenes it was usually in prints, drawings, and small-scale works; ''[[Guernica (painting)|Guernica]]'' (1937) is one of his few large narrative paintings.<ref name="Cowling&Mundy_208"/> ''Guernica'' was on display at the Museum of Modern Art for many years. In 1981, it was returned to Spain and was on exhibit at the [[Casón del Buen Retiro]] of the [[Museo del Prado]]. In 1992, the painting was put on display in the [[Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía|Reina Sofía Museum]] when it opened.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Selvin |first=Claire |date=May 7, 2020 |title=How Picasso's Famed Mural 'Guernica' Became a Poignant Political Symbol for Activists Around the World |url=https://www.artnews.com/art-news/artists/picasso-guernica-exhibitions-anti-war-symbol-1202686074/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241228130231/https://www.artnews.com/art-news/artists/picasso-guernica-exhibitions-anti-war-symbol-1202686074/ |archive-date=December 28, 2024 |access-date=March 5, 2025 |website=ARTnews}}</ref>

Picasso painted mostly from imagination or memory. According to [[William Rubin]], Picasso "could only make great art from subjects that truly involved him ... Unlike Matisse, Picasso had eschewed models virtually all his mature life, preferring to paint individuals whose lives had both impinged on, and had real significance for, his own."<ref name="Danto_1996"/> The art critic [[Arthur Danto]] said Picasso's work constitutes a "vast pictorial autobiography" that provides some basis for the popular conception that "Picasso invented a new style each time he fell in love with a new woman".<ref name="Danto_1996"/> The autobiographical nature of Picasso's art is reinforced by his habit of dating his works, often to the day. He explained: "I want to leave to posterity a documentation that will be as complete as possible. That's why I put a date on everything I do."<ref name="Danto_1996"/>

The women in Picasso's life played an important role in the emotional and erotic aspects of his creative expression, and the tumultuous nature of these relationships has been considered vital to his artistic process. Many of these women functioned as muses for him, and their inclusion in his extensive oeuvre granted them a place in art history.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Epps |first=Philomena |date=23 June 2016 |title=The Women Behind the Work: Picasso and His Muses |url=https://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/8799/the-women-behind-the-work-picasso-and-his-muses |access-date=25 April 2020 |website=AnOther |language=en}}</ref> A largely recurring motif in his body of work is the female form. The variations in his relationships informed and collided with&nbsp;his progression of style throughout his career. For example, portraits created of his first wife, Olga, were rendered in a naturalistic style during his [[Neoclassicism|Neoclassical]] period. His relationship with Marie-Thérèse Walter inspired many of his [[Surrealism|surrealist]] pieces, as well as what is referred to as his "Year of Wonders".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Borchardt-Hume |first=Achim |date=7 March 2018 |title=Picasso 1932: The Year of Wonders – Tate Etc |url=https://www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-42-spring-2018/picasso-1932-year-of-wonders |access-date=25 April 2020 |website=Tate |language=en-GB}}</ref> The reappearance of an acrobats theme in 1905 put an end to his "[[Picasso's Blue Period|Blue Period]]", marking the transition into his "[[Picasso's Rose Period|Rose Period]]". This transition has been incorrectly attributed to the presence of [[Fernande Olivier]] in his life.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Franck |first=Dan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eHIMLGwiTvQC&pg=PA75 |title=Bohemian Paris: Picasso, Modigliani, Matisse, and the Birth of Modern Art |publisher=Grove Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-8021-3997-9 |language=en}}</ref>

=== Catalogue raisonné ===
Picasso entrusted [[Christian Zervos]] to constitute the [[catalogue raisonné]] of his work (painted and drawn). The first volume of the catalogue, ''Works from 1895 to 1906'', published in 1932, entailed the financial ruin of Zervos, self-publishing under the name ''[[Cahiers d'art]]'', forcing him to sell part of his art collection at auction to avoid bankruptcy.<ref name="sale1" /><ref name="uabca" />

From 1932 to 1978, Zervos constituted the catalogue raisonné of the complete works of Picasso in the company of the artist who had become one of his friends in 1924. Following the death of Zervos, Mila Gagarin supervised the publication of 11 additional volumes from 1970 to 1978.<ref name="PER00449b68b92455f2" />

The 33 volumes cover the entire work from 1895 to 1972, with close to 16,000 black and white photographs, in accord with the will of the artist.<ref name="nytimes" />

* 1932: tome I, ''Œuvres de 1895 à 1906''. Introduction p.&nbsp;XI–[XXXXIX], 185 pages, 384 reproductions
* 1942: tome II, vol.1, ''Œuvres de 1906 à 1912''. Introduction p.&nbsp;XI–[LV], 172 pages, 360 reproductions
* 1944: tome II, vol.2, ''Œuvres de 1912 à 1917''. Introduction p.&nbsp;IX–[LXX–VIII], 233 p. pp.&nbsp;173 to 406, 604 reproductions
* 1949: tome III, ''Œuvres de 1917 à 1919''. Introduction p.&nbsp;IX–[XIII], 152 pages, 465 reproductions
* 1951: tome IV, ''Œuvres de 1920 à 1922''. Introduction p.&nbsp;VII–[XIV], 192 pages, 455 reproductions
* 1952: tome V, ''Œuvres de 1923 à 1925''. Introduction p.&nbsp;IX–[XIV], 188 pages, 466 reproductions
* 1954: tome VI, ''Supplément aux tomes I à V''. Sans introduction, 176 pages, 1481 reproductions
* 1955: tome VII, ''Œuvres de 1926 à 1932''. Introduction p.&nbsp;V–[VII], 184 pages, 424 reproductions
{{Inc-lit|date=October 2021}}
* 1978: ''Catalogue raisonné des œuvres de Pablo Picasso'', Paris, Éditions Cahiers d'art<ref name="jacqu" />
'''Further publications by Zervos'''
* ''Picasso. Œuvres de 1920 à 1926'', Cahiers d'art, Paris
* ''Dessins de Picasso 1892–1948'', Paris, Éditions Cahiers d'art, 1949
* ''Picasso. Dessins (1892–1948)'', Hazan, 199 reproductions, 1949