The Messed Up Real-Life Story Of Pablo Picasso

May 2024 · 2 minute read

Pablo Picasso was born on October 25, 1881, into a middle-class family in Málaga, Spain. He went by Pablo Ruiz y Picasso for a time, though he would drop his father's surname in the road to Picasso. 

According to the book Pablo Picasso by art historian Victoria Charles, some say Picasso could draw before he could even speak. He had an immediate attraction to artists' tools and would prefer tracing pictures in the sand to playing childhood games. Picasso's father was also a painter, specializing in realistic depictions of birds and wildlife, and when Pablo Picasso was 7 he began receiving formal training from his father.

When Pablo Picasso's family moved to A Coruña in 1891 due to financial difficulties, Picasso's father, José Ruiz y Blasco, took up a position at the local School of Fine Arts as a drawing and painting teacher while Pablo Picasso was accepted into the school as a student. For several years Picasso would study painting in the classroom and at home, but in 1895 tragedy struck when his 7-year-old sister, Conchita, passed away from diptheria. 

According to The Atlantic, the death of his sister was a source of great anguish for Picasso. As he decided that God was evil for allowing Conchita to die, his paintings took on a religious tone. After Conchita's death the family moved to Barcelona and Picasso transferred to its School of Fine Art, later studying briefly at Madrid's Royal Academy of San Fernando as well.

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