9 Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso drew pictures before he could talk. As a child, he sat happily with his paper and pencils and drew for hours. His father was a painter. He was very happy that his son liked to draw, but he did not know that one day Pablo would be one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century.

Pablo Picasso was born in 1881 in Malaga, Spain. He was a very bad student,and he hated school.Instead of studying,he drew pictures. When he was only eight years old, he finished his first oil painting. It had beautiful colors. Picasso never sold this painting.

When Pablo was 14, his family moved to Barcelona. He wanted to go to the School of Fine Arts. To get into the school, a student had to finish a painting in one month. Picasso finished his painting in one day.

When he was 18, Picasso went to live in Paris. He was very poor at first. He lived in a small room and worked with only the light of a candle. Sometimes he did not even have money for a candle. But Pablo Picasso had a strong personality. He believed in himself. He created one piece of art after another. He met important people,and they began to buy his work.Eventually Picasso became rich and famous.

Picasso was strange in many ways. For example, for a long time, he did not want a telephone. Then one day his son almost died because he could not call for help. Picasso was also strange because he did not throw anything away, not even an empty cigarette package.He liked to be alone,so he locked his studio.No one could get in. Picasso loved animals. He had a monkey, a goat, snakes,and many dogs.He was married twice,and he was not very close to his family and friends. His work was more important to him than people were.

Picasso lived a long and full life. He never stopped working. He painted 200 pictures the year he was 90. He was still working on the day he died at the age of 91. Picasso left the world the genius of his art.