The Birth of a Genius Pablo's mother saw the spark of genius early in her son's dark curious eyes Throughout his childhood she loved to say If you become a soldier you'll be a general If you become a monk you'll end up Pope Whenever he recalled his mother's words as an adult Pablo always smiled adding Instead I became a painter and ended up Picasso One of the OPPOSITE The theme of a mother and child was one that Picasso revisited in various stages of his artistic career thanks in part perhaps to his own relationship with his mother
most prolific and idolized artists of the 2oth century Pablo Picasso continually broke artistic boundaries and stunned the world with his originality Decades after the artist s death his name still resonates with boldness and his work reveals the vision of a man driven to create until the very end ablo Ruiz Picasso on Oc ablo Ruiz Picasso was born on tober 25 1881 in Málaga a town in the sun drenched south of Spain His father José Ruiz Blasco was a painter who had struggled for years to make a living as an artist Shortly 10
after his marriage to Maria Picasso José accepted that he would never become a great artist and settled into a job teaching art As a teacher he was able to provide a comfortable middle class lifestyle for his wife and family but he often felt dissatisfied He hoped that Pablo his only son would have the opportunity to achieve greater success in his life than he had in his own Pablo the eldest of the Ruiz children had two sisters His sister Lola was born on the heels of an earthquake a terrifying experience for three year old Pablo Already an imaginative boy he could not look at his sister without conjuring visions of the earthquake He regarded the shift of the earth as the moment when his parents at tention shifted away from him to the new baby Pablo s other sister Conchita born when Pablo was six died as a child The loss was difficult for the whole family but PABLO PICAsso 11
