Pod Insights Short History Of... Pablo Picasso About this episode Pablo Picasso was one of the most celebrated and radical artists of the 20th century. His styles shocked and outraged contemporaries, and are still instantly recognisable today. But while the artist was publicly fêted, behind closed doors there was a darker side, and many of his female companions protested at his behaviour.
So what drove Picasso to master the rules of art, and then break them? How did a man who claimed he didn’t ‘do politics’ become a poster boy for revolution? And what makes him one of the most valuable artists of all time?
This is a short history of Pablo Picasso.
A Noiser Production. Written by Jo Furniss. With thanks to Suzanne Preston Blier, a professor of Fine Art and African Studies at Harvard University, and the author of Picasso’s Demoiselles, The True Origins of a Modern Masterpiece.
Get every episode of Short History Of a week early with Noiser+. You’ll also get ad-free listening, bonus material, and early access to shows across the Noiser network. Click the Noiser+ banner to get started. Or, if you’re on Spotify or Android, go to https://www.noiser.com/noiser-plus
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript 0:01 Speaker 00 Low energy, unfocused, foggy? You might be dehydrated. Whether it's hot yoga, over 100-degree weather, or too much sun. Gator Light, with a specialized blend of five electrolytes, was scientifically designed to help move fluids into the body faster for rapid rehydration. Shop now at retailers nationwide. Gator Light: Hydrates Faster Than Water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.
0:35 Speaker 01 It is May 27, 1906, in the high Pyrenees, Spain.
0:41 Speaker 01 A young man and woman are mounted on mules, picking their way up a mountain pass. With each step, stones tumble over the sheer drop.
0:53 Speaker 01 The woman, called Fernand, is wrapped by the view. Her companion, Pablo, is worried about his luggage that teeters over the side as the pack animal steps unsteadily around hairpin bends.
1:08 Speaker 01 Only their fox, terrier, puppy is relaxed, yapping around their heels.
1:16 Speaker 01 They reach their destination, a village hanging off the face of the mountain. The mules clop over cobblestones as they enter Gose.
1:27 Speaker 01 The travelers dismount and stretch their stiff legs.
1:32 Speaker 01 Entering the only inn, the Hostel Cal Tamanada, they are shown to a room. Fernand throws open the windows that overlook the Plaza Mejor.
1:45 Speaker 01 It is so peaceful in the main square that Fernand, a Parisian model, is concerned that she might get bored over the coming weeks. But Pablo is already unpacking an easel and paints and unrolling paper and canvases. He has traveled all this way to get away from the noise and distractions of the city.
2:09 Speaker 01 Soon, the couple go out to explore the narrow streets. They hear music and follow it.
2:17 Speaker 01 Around a corner, they stumble upon a religious festival. A group of robed priests carry a cross. Then come drummers and musicians, and finally, children dancing. Some hold aloft Catholic icons: skulls, crucifixes, an emaciated figure of Christ with an angular ribcage. Pablo is struck by the spectacle: the joyous atmosphere that contrasts with the macabre imagery of death.
2:49 Speaker 01 He produces a pad and makes sketches as the festival sets off in a procession.
2:59 Speaker 01 The couple follow the celebrants out of the village and up another path towards a tumble-down church. This is Santa Maria del Castel, a chapel built in the year 1010, with a square tower and rose window.
3:15 Speaker 01 Inside the dim interior, their eyes adjust from the bright sunshine.
3:22 Speaker 01 It is decorated in ornate Romanesque style, with frescoes of skulls and crucifixes.
3:30 Speaker 01 As Pablo turns, a woman catches his eye. She is a small wooden figurine of the Madonna, with the infant Jesus sitting neatly on her lap. The figure is polychrome, painted in the dark colors of the earth. But her face is so pale, it is luminous in the darkness.
3:52 Speaker 01 Pablo is transfixed.
3:55 Speaker 01 When Fernanda tugs his sleeve to go, Pablo springs into action. He rushes back to their hostel, urgent to reach his easel.
4:06 Speaker 01 He always works quickly, but now he is caught up in a kind of religious rapture. He rifles through boxes for a stick of charcoal and uses it to make sweeping lines that form into human figures. He discards that piece of paper and starts drawing faces on another. Like the ancient frescoes in the chapel, his images have no perspective. He works for hours.
4:34 Speaker 01 When Pablo is finally exhausted, and the bedroom is littered with sketches, it is late. Fernand has gone to bed.
4:44 Speaker 01 He packs up for the night and signs his name in the bottom corner of a finished piece. It says simply, “Picasso.”
5:00 Speaker 01 Pablo Picasso was one of the most celebrated and radical artists of the 20th century. His distinctive styles, which often shocked and outraged contemporaries, are instantly recognizable. He was also prolific, leaving some 50,000 works of art. But his productivity makes him no less valuable. In 2015, his most expensive painting to be sold at auction went for almost $180 million.
5:32 Speaker 01 Exiled from his homeland of Spain for most of his adult life, Picasso played a unique role in documenting the political conflicts of his turbulent times. But while the artist was publicly feted, behind closed doors, his genius came at a cost to those around him. Some of his female companions, his muses, protested at his cruel treatment.
5:58 Speaker 01 So what drove Picasso to master the rules of art and then break them? Why did a man who claimed he didn’t “do” politics become a poster boy for revolution? And what makes him one of the most valuable artists of all time, second only to Leonardo da Vinci?
6:18 Speaker 01 I’m John Hopkins. From the Noiser Network, this is A Short History of Pablo Picasso.
6:33 Speaker 01 On October 25, 1881, a woman called Maria Picasso I Lopez gives birth to her first child.
6:43 Speaker 01 The boy is born into a middle-class family, who live in a comfortable apartment in a yellow stucco building in the old town of Malaga, on the south coast of Spain.
6:54 Speaker 01 His father, Jose Ruiz Blasco, is a painter and art tutor. And both he and his wife are delighted by their son. They name him Pablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Crispin Crispiano Maria Remedios de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz Picasso. He is known in the family as Pablo. He will be known to the world as Picasso.
7:21 Speaker 01 As the eldest child, he is doted upon by the women in his family. Soon he has two younger sisters who also look up to him. But Pablo, in turn, admires his father. He spends hours watching him produce art that graces the homes of wealthy buyers. As well as teaching drawing, he specializes in painting pigeons.
7:44 Speaker 01 The young Pablo is awestruck by the painstaking process of capturing their complex plumage. And inevitably, the boy picks up a pencil himself.
7:59 Speaker 01 At first, he scribbles caricatures and one-line representations of animals. Perhaps a dog, drawn from nose to tail. But soon, he starts to observe the wider world. Especially when he accompanies his father to the Plaza de Toros to watch the bullfight.
8:19 Speaker 01 In the bright sunlight, the red and yellow costume of the matador stands out against the dusty ground of the bullring.
8:27 Speaker 01 Pablo is struck by the brutal power and tragic vulnerability of the bull. A figure that will be a lifelong symbol in his artwork.
8:38 Speaker 01 Suzanne Preston-Blier is a professor of fine art and African studies at Harvard University. She is the author of Picasso's Demoiselle: The True Origins of a Modern Masterpiece.
8:51 Speaker 02 Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain, which is on the coast and very close to Africa. His father was an art instructor and very soon Picasso himself came under his tutelage. And we know that he was a prodigious talent early on.
9:13 Speaker 02 The first major work that we know of from Picasso, he was only eight or nine years old. It's called Le Picador. And it's a wonderful work that shows a yellow attired picador, horse rider in a bullfight context. A really strong sense of perspective and almost elements of caricature of the people in the audience who are watching that not only makes it clear what a remarkable talent he was, but also his ability to capture movement and detail and personalities. And a few years later, you know, by the age of 13, he'd already surpassed his father's abilities.
9:59 Speaker 01 Around this time, tragedy strikes.
10:04 Speaker 01 One of Pablo's younger sisters, Conchita, is infected with diptheria. The girl, who is only seven, is confined to bed.
10:14 Speaker 01 As her condition worsens, Pablo prays for her life and even makes a pact with God. If Conchita can be saved, he will give up his art.
10:26 Speaker 01 But it is not to be. She dies and Picasso is left haunted by the loss.
10:38 Speaker 01 Shortly afterwards, in 1895, the family moved to Barcelona for a fresh start. Pablo applies to the city's School of Art. While most students spend months preparing a portfolio for the entrance process, he completes the necessary work in a day.
10:57 Speaker 01 He is an excellent student, but though he spends two years at the school, by 1897, he has grown restless and rebellious. His father sees that Pablo needs a bigger challenge, and sends him to the most prestigious art school in Spain, in Madrid. But even here, he is frustrated with formal study of the classics, and soon starts skipping classes to seek his own education.
11:23 Speaker 02 Picasso is very self-aware at this moment. When he moves to Madrid at the age of 16 to attend the Royal Academy of San Fernando, he's spending an awful lot of time in the Prado and in that museum, and really communicating, in a real sense, with the great Spanish masters like Velázquez and Agüero and Goya. And in a certain sense, he's competing throughout his life, not only with those artists around him, but with the whole history of art, with the whole legacy of the brilliant masters of the past, beginning with those in Spain.
12:03 Speaker 01 Picasso drops out and never graduates. He is impatient to start his own career. Little does he know that one day he will be named Director of the Prado, and the Royal Academy will award him an honorary scholarship, but not for another 70 years.
12:24 Speaker 01 In the meantime, as the end of the 19th century approaches, he heads back to Barcelona.
12:31 Speaker 01 The bustling streets and cafes are packed with a bohemian crowd of poets, painters, dancers, and writers. An atmosphere better suited to the curious and charismatic young artist.
12:45 Speaker 02 Spain has long been an important center of art, and it certainly is in this era as well. And there are a number of artists in this broader area, around Barcelona and in Barcelona itself, with whom he becomes very close. Perhaps most famous here is Gaudi, who's at work on the famous cathedral. And there's a café there, a famous café. The Four Cats that Picasso joins, they're the first to actually exhibit Picasso's work. And he meets a number of friends there. And this is around the time when he's really thinking about himself as an individual and an independent artist. But still today, Gaudi's cathedral is absolutely stunning,
13:29 Speaker 02 incredibly innovative work. And to some degree, Picasso, although more largely a painter and a sculptor, is following in line with the just brilliance of, well, it's transforming Spain in this period.
13:47 Speaker 01 For the first time, Picasso's work goes on public display.
13:53 Speaker 01 In February 1900, a collection of his charcoal portraits, mostly sketches of friends and fellow Bohemians, are strung along the walls of the Four Cats café.
14:04 Speaker 01 The images are hung without frames, pinned one above the other, with no catalogue to identify them. The exhibition is amateur, but it announces Pablo to Fan de Siercla Barcelona. The owner of the Four Cats even asks him to design a new menu. Pablo Picasso has arrived.
14:30 Speaker 03 Low energy, unfocused, foggy? You might be dehydrated. Gatorade Zero powders have been scientifically designed to help improve hydration balance in the body. With a clinically proven electrolyte blend and no artificial colours or flavours, great tasting hydration no matter where you're going. Shop now online or at retailers nationwide. Gatorade: Hydrates Better Than Water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.
14:59 Speaker 01 This November, on the Noiser Podcast Network. On Real Dictators, the story of Rafael Trujillo concludes with an epic shootout scene, plucked straight from a mafia movie. On Short History of, join us as we un-thor Utsi the Iceman, Europe's oldest known natural human mummy, and step back into the swinging 60s. On Real Survival Stories, on Ben Nevis, Scotland's highest mountain, a chilling tale plays out in the mist. And after a volcanic eruption in New Zealand, a helicopter pilot scrambles to respond. In Jane Austen Stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews. And in Sherlock Holmes' Short Stories, the tale of hidden treasure and murder continues in The Sign of Four.
15:42 Speaker 01 Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.
15:52 Speaker 01 One image from the exhibition, a painting called "Last Moments", is selected for the Exposition Universelle in Paris, the World Fair of 1900. This work no longer exists, as Picasso later paints over it with a portrait of his best friend, Carlos Casahemas. It is Casahemas who accompanies Picasso to Paris to attend the exhibition in 1900. They arrive at Orsay train station in the autumn. After finding their way to the artist's quarter of Montmartre, Picasso settles in and starts learning French.
16:30 Speaker 02 In Paris, he's really living the life of a very poor artist. And it's not easy. He's living in an area and in a residence with a number of other artists and has really a hard time just getting enough food to eat.
16:48 Speaker 01 But despite the privations of life in Paris, Picasso falls in love with the city. His friend Casahamas also falls in love with a young woman called Jemaine, an artist's model. But she does not feel the same.
17:05 Speaker 01 While Picasso is away, visiting his family in Malaga, Casahamas arranges a dinner for Jemaine and some friends at the Hébert-Rome Café in Paris.
17:15 Speaker 01 During the meal, he proposes to the young woman. But when she refuses, he produces a gun. He fires a shot at Jemaine, but misses. And so he turns the pistol on himself.
17:31 Speaker 01 Picasso returns to Paris and the apartment he had shared with his friend. He even starts an affair with Jemaine.
17:39 Speaker 01 But the suicide of his fellow Spaniard affects his mental health and his work, leading to what will become known as his Blue Period.
17:50 Speaker 02 This deeply impacted Picasso. And as a result of that, his rich color palette becomes far more somber. And around this time, he's really turning inward in key respects. But also, his first real love, who is Fernando Olivier, whom he meets in 1904 and becomes a sort of central figure in what artist historians call his Blue Period, when the color blue dominates many of the works that he's engaging with.
18:27 Speaker 01 En 1905, Picasso también encuentra a Gertrude Stein. Un rico ejército judío americano con un ojo crítico discernente. Stein es un recogedor de arte y magnete social cuyo salón de sábado une a las mejores mentes creativas de la ciudad. Cuando Picasso es invitado a unirse a su círculo, se desplaza de su garra agotada y del mundo precarious de la monmatra bohemiana y hacia la élite artística de París.
18:57 Speaker 02 En el verano de 1906, uno de los comerciantes locales conocidos viene al estudio de Picasso y compra prácticamente todo lo que está en él y proporciona a Picasso tanto financiación que no tiene suficiente dinero si quiere vivir en ello durante los próximos años. Pagar el alquiler, comprar comida, etc. Y creo que una de las cosas más impactantes de la vida de Picasso no es solo su voluntad, sino su devoción por el arte. Y decide realmente no gastar eso de forma tal, sino usar ese dinero como medio de no trabajar para patrones particulares en temas particulares,
19:41 Speaker 02 sino más bien de ir profundamente adentro, descubrir el mundo nuevo.
19:55 Speaker 01 Aunque ya ha comenzado a trabajar en una portra de Stein, por primera vez en su vida, está luchando por inspiración.
20:05 Speaker 01 Ahora, un amigo le dice sobre un refugio remoto, un santuario en la Pirámide llamado Gozal. El artista persuade a su novia Fernand Olivier de hacer el viaje largo con él. Se necesitan días en un tren de vapor, además de una pelota peligrosa a lo largo de los caminos de la montaña. Pero alejado de la presión y la gana del set bohemiano en París, con el tiempo de absorber la imprenta de rituales religiosos en la aldea, Picasso refina su estilo.
20:37 Speaker 01 He is particularly struck by a polychrome, or painted model of the Madonna, in the ancient church of Santa Maria del Castel. He spends ten weeks in the mountains, and returns to Paris full of purpose.
20:54 Speaker 02 He wanted to forge a new path that was going to transform the whole of the history of art, which at that juncture, we're talking 1906, '07, just after the turn of the century, with the invention of photography and with the development of a really striking 19th-century form of realism, it's not clear how much further one could go within that realm of a realistic rendering of the world around one or key subjects. And so, he decides to frankly, turn it on a tad.
21:29 Speaker 01 As well as a technological revolution, there is also seismic cultural change sweeping through Europe. France is one of the superpowers plundering the continent of Africa for its resources and influence. African culture is starting to be noticed by Europeans and appreciated with fresh eyes.
21:56 Speaker 01 It is spring, 1907.
22:00 Speaker 01 Pablo Picasso lights up a Golgoz cigarette while reclining on a sofa inside a lavish Paris apartment.
22:09 Speaker 01 He blows smoke towards the open window. A busker is playing outside.
22:15 Speaker 01 This is the home of Pablo's patron, Gertrude Stein, who is still waiting for the portrait she's commissioned.
22:23 Speaker 01 Sitting opposite the artist, she looks typically bohemian in her flowing dress and Grecian sandals, a far cry from the corsets still worn by most women on the street. Her decor is maximalist: decadent throws, antiques from different eras, ornate lamps and rugs, and the walls jostle with paintings by Renoir, Matisse, and Picasso himself.
22:48 Speaker 01 Now the doorbell rings, and Gertrude rises to answer it.
22:55 Speaker 01 She returns, chattering with a small, bearded man, the artist Henri Matisse. He is known for scandalous paintings. One of his exhibitions caused such a furor that someone put a sign on the door saying: "Gallery of lunatics, enter at your own risk."
23:14 Speaker 01 Today, he is excited to show his friends Pablo and Gertrude an item he purchased in a flea market. He unwraps the paper to reveal a small figure of a man sitting on a stool. It is made of ebony wood, almost black, and so densely grained that it is smooth. Pablo takes it reverently and turns it in the light.
23:38 Speaker 01 The doorbell signals the arrival of more guests, but Pablo is wrapped by the figurine, even sniffing its musty smell. It's unlike anything he's seen before, and Henri explains that it comes from the Congo in Africa, from the Vili people.
23:56 Speaker 01 Gertrude reappears with absent and canapes, followed by a clutch of fabulously dressed acquaintances.
24:03 Speaker 01 As the party starts, Henri tries to take back his objet d'art, which he treasures, even though it only cost a few francs. But Pablo won't give it up. He keeps the figure by his side all evening.
24:18 Speaker 01 Hours later, after the party burns itself out, he goes home to his easel.
24:24 Speaker 01 He snatches up a paintbrush, sending a pot of water crashing onto the tiles. He thinks of the African sculpture and also the naïve figurines from his own culture, the polychrome Madonna, ancient Iberian effigies.
24:40 Speaker 01 On the paper, he paints a single curve. He adds to it, switching lines from convex to concave in the African style. What emerges is a human figure with a single ear.
24:55 Speaker 01 He prepares the brush again, but stops, hand in the air.
25:01 Speaker 01 No. It is done.
25:07 Speaker 01 The paintbrush rattles into a glass, and he collapses onto a chair to rest.
25:21 Speaker 02 And the next morning, his friends arrived at his studio to find strewn across the floor a series of drawings and color renderings on drawings in which he's portrayed the head and bust of a figure with a large ear. And those are really the beginning point of his venture into cubism. Because he's realizing that there are certain parts of the physiognomy that, in his eye, in his mind, following akin to the wisdom which physiognomy is portrayed in Africa, that are more important than others. And so, that's again, a wonderful grappling with a key intellectual, Gertrude Stein, who he is in part his patron and would continue to be.
26:05 Speaker 02 And his competitor friend Henri Matisse. It's a wonderful relationship that engages the two of them to compete with one another in ways that propel their own works and their own contributions to the history of art.
26:26 Speaker 01 Now he embarks again on the portrait of Gertrude Stein, depicting her with heavy eyelids and mask-like facial features. He draws on the dark hues of the Madonna from the ancient church in Gozel and gives Stein a similarly pale, luminous face. He doesn't need his subject to sit for him. He doesn't consult photographs. He simply emphasizes her distinctive characteristics as he sees them. When someone later comments that Stein looks nothing like the portrait, he says, "But she will." Stein is enchanted by her painting.
27:07 Speaker 01 "It is," she says, "the only portrait that is always I for me." Picasso is invigorated and spends days at the Trocadéro Museum of Ethnology, exploring the extensive collection of African art.
27:23 Speaker 02 So Picasso, while he would famously say, "I don't do politics," he actually is engaged in politics a fair amount in one way or the other, even in his engagement with African art. He's in many ways an important political and social statement.
27:38 Speaker 02 I think in Picasso's own sense, it's revolution. He has decided that he's going to burn the whole history of art, and he's going to provide a new path forward. And so part of Picasso's revolution was to acknowledge African art, to draw from African art, and to insist that it was art. That in and of itself was revolutionary.
28:11 Speaker 04 Starting or growing your own business can be intimidating and lonely at times. Your to-do list may feel endless with new tasks, and lists can easily begin to overrun your life. So finding the right tool that not only helps you out, but simplifies everything as a built-in business partner can be a game changer. For millions of businesses, that tool is Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the US, from household names like Jimm Shark, Rare Beauty, and Heinz, to brands just getting started. Shopify has hundreds of ready-to-use templates that can help you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand's style. And you can tackle all the important tasks in one place,
28:56 Speaker 04 from inventory to payments to analytics and more. No need to save multiple websites or try to figure out what platform is hosting the tool that you need. And if people haven't heard about your brand, you can get the word out like you have a marketing team behind you with easy-to-run email and social media campaigns to reach customers wherever they're scrolling or strolling. Start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify, and start hearing... Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com/real. Go to Shopify.com/real. That's Shopify.com/real.
29:37 Speaker 03 Low energy, unfocused, foggy? You might be dehydrated. Gatorade Zero powders have been scientifically designed to help improve hydration balance in the body. With a clinically proven electrolyte blend and no artificial colors or flavors. Great tasting hydration, no matter where you're going. Shop now online or at retailers nationwide. Gatorade: Hydrates Better Than Water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.
30:06 Speaker 01 By 1907, Picasso is aged 25 and working at a furious pace. His studio is in the Bateau Lavoie district of Momacha, a former piano workshop where the huge space has been carved up by rickety wooden partitions into smaller artists' ateliers. The whole neighborhood is steeped in artistic history. Just a few steps away, Van Gogh painted his views of Paris and Renoir his portraits and street scenes. But Picasso has an idea for something drastically new. He erects a huge canvas, some eight feet high and almost eight feet across, and starts to sketch five naked women.
30:49 Speaker 01 Four standing and one squatting on a stool. When it is completed, the picture is called Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, or The Young Ladies of Avignon. It breaks conventions, the subjects staring out at the viewer with confrontational frankness, and draws again on African forms, with two of the women having masks for faces. Though it shocks some of his contemporaries, the painting is now considered to mark the beginning of modern art. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon now hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It has been valued at up to a billion dollars.
31:32 Speaker 01 But ironically, Picasso doesn't manage to sell it until almost two decades later. It is too large to impose in, perhaps also too challenging for many buyers.
31:43 Speaker 02 Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is painted in March of 1907, just before Easter. Scholars have assumed to be portraying a bordello, a brothel, and it is not. It's clearly representing something entirely different. In that painting, he's really showing the five mothers of the five races. And it's more a painting that's engaging with this critical new theory of evolution and how all these worlds' races came together. And what he's done in his mind is to bring the mothers of these races back into the same canvas.
32:23 Speaker 02 But I think the fact that people have assumed that that painting is about sexual encounter within the context of prostitution is in part what led people to focus so extensively on Picasso and the woman in his life.
32:40 Speaker 01 And there are many women in Picasso's life. He is as restless in private as he is in public.
32:47 Speaker 01 Fernand Olivier, who traveled with him to Gozal and modeled for many works, including Les Demoiselles, is left in poverty when they later split.
32:59 Speaker 01 After Picasso makes his name, Olivier writes a revealing memoir about their time together. Six excerpts are printed in newspapers, but Picasso uses legal action to block the series and prevent her from publishing a book. He eventually pays her a monthly pension, but only in exchange for her agreeing not to publish more details of their controlling relationship. Her account only sees the light long after Picasso's death.
33:29 Speaker 01 In 1917, he meets a Ukrainian ballet dancer called Olga Hockleva while he is designing costumes for her show. In the first classical-style portraits of this woman who will become his wife, Picasso draws her as a beautiful maiden. She is often shown as pensive or melancholy, a reflection of the time she spends writing letters to her parents back home in Ukraine, while her homeland and family are being devastated by the First World War.
33:59 Speaker 01 Après leur fils naître en 1921, Hocklaver inspire Picasso à peindre des scènes domestiques, et il embrasse des styles Renaissance plus doux. Mais bientôt, sa représentation de sa femme se transforme à nouveau.
34:14 Speaker 01 Picasso la transforme en une créature monstrueuse dans l'art qui accompagne les années tempérées finales où le couple vit ensemble.
34:24 Speaker 01 En 1932, il la ramène à sa nouvelle exposition à la galerie Georges Petit, à Paris.
34:31 Speaker 01 En tenant compte des dizaines de portraits sensuels d'une autre jeune femme, elle réalise que son mari a une nouvelle amie. Le couple se sépare, mais Hocklaver refuse toujours de le divorcer, et ils restent légalement mariés jusqu'à sa mort.
34:47 Speaker 01 La jeune femme qu'il avait peint, Marie-Thérèse Valter, avait seulement 17 quand elle a rencontré Picasso, qui avait presque 30 ans. Et bien qu'ils se sont gardés ensemble presque une décennie, il ne s'est pas longtemps après sa naissance de son enfant, en 1935, que Picasso repartit à nouveau. Un jour, dans les rues de Paris, il voit une jeune femme assis à un café, frappant un couteau entre ses mains étroites, parfois en train de faire de la sang.
35:15 Speaker 01 C'est Dora Ma, une artiste réussie en son propre droit, et un personnage intense.
35:23 Speaker 01 La performance avec le couteau peut être conçue pour attirer l'attention du célèbre peintre. Ils commencent une affaire, et Ma ouvre les yeux de l'âge adulte à la politique gauche.
35:34 Speaker 01 Une figure radicale à Paris, elle prend part aux marches anti-fasciste et se joignent au groupe d'octobre, un collectif d'artistes qui utilise de nouvelles formes de culture populaire, comme l'industrie filmante qui s'agite, pour diffuser l'idéologie de gauche.
35:49 Speaker 01 She introduces Picasso to groundbreaking photography techniques that soon grace his works.
35:56 Speaker 02 His relationships with women, often in a more or less serial way, having a relationship with one and following that with another. And they provided, in a certain sense, key inspiration, each of them in their own way. Many of them were themselves artists and, at the same time, had loving relationships with them, but he also could be very controlling. So, he could be both nurturing and destructive, and that kind of paradox is found throughout his life and is somewhat complicated in how he's addressing women as well as others.
36:40 Speaker 01 For Picasso, male relationships are also vital. His friend Henri Matisse, who inspires him with the African figurine, is also a fierce rival. While Matisse remains calmly paternal towards the young firebrand, Picasso is challenging and critical of the older artist, perhaps even creating his famous Les Demoiselles painting in an attempt to be more controversial than his competitor. But nevertheless, it is a friendly feud, and the two remain close for over 50 years. Similarly, his fellow artist and collaborator Georges Braque provides a counterbalance to Picasso's artistic temperament. He met Braque back in 1907, the year he created Les Demoiselles,
37:24 Speaker 01 and together, the men devised what is now known as Cubism, in which one artwork may depict several perspectives in the same image. They are credited with inventing collage, a method of putting together different source materials, such as newspaper headlines, in order to question reality. The influence of Cubism shakes up the art world, but also ripples through the world of music, resulting in complex and fragmented new rhythms of jazz, and in dance, where Picasso produces avant-garde costumes for the Russian ballet. In literature, Cubism inspires experimental storytelling involving multiple perspectives. It even affects architecture,
38:07 Speaker 01 prompting designers to play with unusual angles and structures.
38:14 Speaker 01 While Bruck's artistic career is interrupted by his involvement in the First World War, Picasso himself doesn't fight, because Spain is neutral in that conflict. But he becomes more politically engaged when his homeland faces ideological strife that drags the country into internal conflict. He opposes the fascist general Francisco Franco, who is a leader of the uprising of 1936 that sparks a civil war and the eventual overturn of the democratically-elected republican government. Picasso's opposition means that, due to safety concerns and in defiance, he never returns to his homeland. Even when he is named director of the Prado Museum in 1936,
38:58 Speaker 01 he holds the position in exile. He works on his first overtly political work of art the year after Franco's uprising, entitling the piece "The Dream and Lie of Franco". Images from the comic book-style grid of cartoon drawings satirizing the dictator are intended to be sold as postcards to raise money for the republican cause. And his political engagement is only growing in intensity. It is late April 1937.
39:43 Speaker 01 Picasso is sitting in the Café de Flore in Paris. He has been commissioned to represent his homeland of Spain in this summer's World Fair, but he is struggling for inspiration. He hasn't been home due to the civil war that is raging there. At the next table, a lady gets up, drops a few coins for a tip, and leaves her newspaper. Picasso leans over to pick it up, then shakes it out to read. The headline screams one word: Guernica. A name he recognizes, a town in northern Spain. But why has this sleepy place made the front pages?
40:29 Speaker 01 As Picasso reads on with a growing sense of horror, his artist's mind vividly pictures the scene.
40:38 Speaker 01 He is transported to Market Day in Guernica.
40:47 Speaker 01 Stallholders shout their wares. Horses pull overlaiden carts. A child, running an errand for her mother, calls to someone in Basque, the regional language. The Basque people stand in opposition to fascist General Franco, who has seized control of the country in a military coup. But the fighting is far from here. People are relaxed, going about their lives, and the girl understands little of the political situation.
41:16 Speaker 01 Now, the girl stops, hearing a droning sound. It comes from far away, high in the sky, and as she stares into the distance, it seems that a flock of large birds is approaching.
41:30 Speaker 01 But the noise grows louder, and soon it is clear that these are no birds. They are moving too fast.
41:38 Speaker 01 The marketplace falls quiet as people watch the squadron of aircraft close in.
41:45 Speaker 01 Suddenly the silence is shattered. A huge boom is followed by a surreal sight. The Church of San Juan puffs up a cloud of brick dust and collapses.
41:58 Speaker 01 The girl drops to the ground and throws her arms over her head as people cry out all around her. The planes roar low overhead, dropping their bombs. More explosions are followed by the screams of people and horses.
42:14 Speaker 01 Someone grabs the girl by the shoulder and pushes her into a side street. They tell her to run. She is fast and lucky. She speeds downhill and takes cover under a cart. But terrible sounds follow her from the marketplace as more bombs land directly onto civilians.
42:33 Speaker 01 Far from the scene of horror, safely in Paris, Picasso puts down the newspaper.
42:40 Speaker 01 He checks the date. This atrocity happened two days ago. An entire town devastated, hundreds dead, and he didn't even know. He was going about his mundane life while his compatriots were dying.
42:57 Speaker 01 He throws down some coins for his coffee, takes the newspaper, and rushes towards his studio. In the worst possible way, he has his inspiration for the Spanish exhibit at the World Fair.
43:18 Speaker 01 The attack on Guernica is ordered by General Franco against the Basque people who oppose his fascist government. It is carried out by his allies in the Nazi, German, and fascist Italian air forces. Picasso's girlfriend, Dora Ma, as well as other Spanish artists in exile, encourage him to condemn the attack. He decides that the atrocity deserves a painting on an epic scale.
43:45 Speaker 01 Ma sets about finding a studio large enough to house a vast canvas, almost eight meters wide and over three meters high. Picasso uses a palette of gray, white, and black, perhaps inspired by newspaper images and certainly by Ma's surrealist photography. She is in the studio with him throughout the 35 days it takes to produce the work that he calls simply "Guernica."
44:12 Speaker 01 It features different figures: a bull, a dead soldier, her mother holding a dying child, a woman crying to the heavens.
44:22 Speaker 01 The center of the frame is dominated by a wounded horse screaming in agony.
44:29 Speaker 02 Guernica, again, it's a massively large canvas. It's created in grisaille, which are grays and whites and blacks, then draws on various elements, including evoking the actual bombing and the screams of horses and humanity as they are being hit. But he's also, in this case, drawing on imagery from cave paintings and wall paintings in Africa.
44:55 Speaker 01 Guernica goes on display in Paris at the Spanish Pavilion in the Trocadour Gardens in 1937. It causes a sensation with its overtly political message and receives mixed reviews.
45:09 Speaker 01 But the huge canvas is designed to be rolled up and transported. And after the World Fair, Guernica goes on tour around Europe and then the United States. It stays there for decades, at Picasso's request, as he did not want it to go to Spain while Franco remained in charge. The general lives until 1975. So it's not until 1981 that the painting makes its triumphant return to Picasso's homeland. The original now resides in the National Art Centre in Madrid.
45:48 Speaker 03 Low energy, unfocused, foggy, you might be dehydrated. Gatorade Zero powders have been scientifically designed to help improve hydration balance in the body. With a clinically proven electrolyte blend and no artificial colours or flavours. Great tasting hydration, no matter where you're going. Shop now online or at retailers nationwide. Gatorade: Hydrates Better Than Water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.
46:17 Speaker 01 This November, on the Noiser Podcast Network. On Real Dictators, the story of Rafael Trujillo concludes with an epic shootout scene, plucked straight from a mafia movie. On Short History of, join us as we unthor Utsi the Iceman, Europe's oldest known natural human mummy, and step back into the swinging 60s. On Real Survival Stories, on Ben Nevis, Scotland's highest mountain, a chilling tale plays out in the mist. And after a volcanic eruption in New Zealand, a helicopter pilot scrambles to respond. In Jane Austen Stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews. And in Sherlock Holmes' Short Stories, the tale of hidden treasure and murder continues in The Sign of Fall.
47:00 Speaker 01 Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus. And for our American listeners, a special offer on Noize's debut book, A Short History of Ancient Rome. Head to bookshop.org and use the code NONFIC26 for 15% off. Valid for US customers November 1st to 30th. That's bookshop.org and use the code N-O-N-F-I-C-26.
47:32 Speaker 01 Soon after Guernica is created, Europe is in the grip of another conflict. In 1939, just before Nazi Germany declares war on France, Picasso takes Dora Ma to the relative safety of Chaillens, on the French Atlantic coast. His other mistress, Marie-Thérèse Valter, also lives there, with their five-year-old daughter, Maya. Picasso continues to paint and send work back to Paris, where his art is received by an influential dealer, the gallery owner Paul Rosenberg. This man has his own problems. First, he is a Jew, in a city that is expected to come under Nazi control. Secondly, the Nazis have declared Picasso's work "degenerate art."
48:17 Speaker 01 If it falls into their hands, it will be destroyed.
48:22 Speaker 01 Rosenberg starts smuggling Picasso's canvases to safe locations, such as New York and London. And the rest, he hides as best he can, before he flees the city. Remarkably, his son, Alexandre Rosenberg, later rescues hundreds of pieces of his father's collection that were seized by the Nazis. He stays behind to fight when his father leaves.
48:48 Speaker 01 By 1944, Alexandre is Lieutenant Rosenberg, and joins the D-Day invasion, in which thousands of Allied troops cross the Channel from England to France.
49:00 Speaker 01 He marches on Paris, and weeks later, carries out a mission based on intelligence from the French Resistance.
49:08 Speaker 01 Their operatives manage to stop a Nazi train leaving Paris, laden with arts and antiques, plundered from Jewish homes and businesses.
49:18 Speaker 01 Lieutenant Rosenberg boards the hijacked train and finds hundreds of works, including the so-called "degenerate art" of Picasso, which his father Theod had been burned by the Nazis. The hoard includes a painting of Dora Ma that Picasso created in the coastal town of Royan, a portrait that will later sell at auction for forty-five million dollars.
49:44 Speaker 01 It is not known how many works by Picasso are looted or destroyed by the Germans, but many survive the conflict by the skin of their teeth, as does the man himself.
49:57 Speaker 01 Although the Nazis take control of Paris in 1940, Picasso returns to the war-torn capital from his brief stay on the coast and holds up in his studio on the Rue de Grands Augustin. It is more comfortable than his first impoverished digs when he lived in the backstreets of Montmartre. But nonetheless, during the dangerous years of Nazi occupation, his studio becomes a hideout. His decision to stay is an act of defiance and solidarity, but he cannot exhibit and is kept under strict surveillance by the Germans.
50:33 Speaker 01 On one occasion, he has on display a photograph of his famous work "Garnica." The Nazi officer who comes to inspect his studio sneers at the dramatic anti-war image and asks Picasso if he is responsible for it. "No," the artist replies. "You are."
50:57 Speaker 01 By now, Picasso is world-famous. His reputation protects him. The Nazis do not want the revolutionary artist to become a martyr, so they leave him unharmed.
51:09 Speaker 01 By the end of the war, when the liberation of Paris comes in 1944, Picasso is aged sixty-three. He becomes interested in far-left politics and joins the Communist Party. Also, the revelations of atrocities like the Holocaust and Hiroshima deepen his anti-war stance. In later years, the Korean War and the Cold War also inspire his politically-charged works, as do his women.
51:38 Speaker 01 His relationship with Dora Ma ended during the war, and Ma has turned to religious seclusion, famously saying: "After Picasso, there can be only God."
51:50 Speaker 01 But for Picasso, after Ma, there will only be more young women, with the new love interests often overlapping with their predecessors. He met 21-year-old François Gielou, 40 years his junior, while in Nazi-occupied Paris, and fathers two children with her.
52:09 Speaker 01 His style softens when he paints her, and he brings in floral motifs, a contrast with his angular portraits of Dora Ma towards the end of their relationship. Even so, after 10 years, he and Gielou split up, thanks again to his cruel treatment and infidelity.
52:28 Speaker 01 Gielou, like Fernand Olivier before her, writes a biography that highlights his narcissistic vindictive behaviour. She also claims to be the only woman to have left him.
52:42 Speaker 01 Picasso meets Jacqueline Rock in 1952, when she comes to work at his pottery. He brings her one rose every day, until she agrees to date him. Their relationship is tempestuous at first, as Picasso expects complete devotion. But the pair live together from 1954, when she is 28 and he is 72. He starts to paint her that same year, and his work takes on a classical quality, with his new muse given feline facial features. His appetite for painting Rock hardly wanes. In 1963 alone, he paints her portrait 160 times.
53:24 Speaker 01 The couple stay together, and Picasso remains prolific, until his death from a heart attack in 1973, aged 91.
53:34 Speaker 01 Though he has put down his brushes for the last time, the mark he has made on the world of art is truly indelible.
53:44 Speaker 02 Picasso's fame, I think, comes from a combination of his brilliance, his intellectual sophistication and his artistic acumen and enormous skill and the fact that he championed a revolution. And he knew how to speak to the population at large globally through his work. He was the outsider in France and his aim was to completely overturn our history. And in many respects, he did do that. But also, he never gave up. He continued to live in Paris during the period of the German takeover. And I think it's the stamina.
54:28 Speaker 02 I think it's his competitiveness. I think it's his enormous creativity and the ways in which he could look at anything and everything and transform it into his own celebration.
54:46 Speaker 01 Even so, Picasso's lifestyle is troubling to many critics. Recent artists have staged protests about his treatment of women. In 2018, the American performance artist Michelle Hartney pins unofficial labels to the Picasso exhibits at New York's Museum of Modern Art to highlight allegations of abuse. Three years later, a Spanish art teacher and her students hold a silent sit-in at the Picasso Museum in Barcelona to draw attention to this aspect of his legacy. And his own granddaughter, Marina Picasso, writes about his attitude to women in her memoir. "He submitted them to his animal sexuality," she says.
55:26 Speaker 01 "Tamed them, bewitched them, ingested them, and crushed them onto his canvas. Once they were bled dry, he would dispose of them."
55:40 Speaker 01 But for many, the art speaks for itself and stands the test of time.
55:46 Speaker 01 Picasso is arguably the most influential and famous artist of the 20th century. As one of the most prolific, he leaves 50,000 paintings, drawings, sculptures, ceramics, and even costumes. He is the highest-selling painter at auction and the most exhibited, with works in more museums around the world than any other artist.
56:08 Speaker 01 Perhaps the best indication of the legacy of Picasso is the way in which his work continues to make us think and critique the world. In the 1970s, Americans protesting against the Vietnam War carried placards depicting the dead soldier from Guernica. Such is its lasting power.
56:27 Speaker 01 In 2003, when the American Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the United Nations to call for an invasion of Iraq, the United States demanded that a reproduction of the famous anti-war painting that overlooks the hall should be covered up. Many decades after its creation, the image holds the power to condemn acts of aggression through its empathy for those caught in the crossfire.
56:53 Speaker 01 Picasso's art is a dialogue between one person and the events of his lifetime. Having once said that "a single line can represent an entire human being," his works, whether simple or complex, caught the attention of the watching world and held on to it. His skill was to interpret the cultural experience of so many and express it in a way so unique that his influence is still inescapable today.
57:22 Speaker 02 I think it is to champion the everyman, to champion the worker, to champion the diversity of cultures that make up the world, and move forward and create a life that was profoundly important in its own way, but a set of works that really transformed the history of art.
57:53 Speaker 01 Next time on Short History, we'll bring you a short history of the Battle of Stalingrad.
58:00 Speaker 05 Stalingrad is remembered, of course, as the symbol of the true horror of war, the suffering of the civilians, the total destruction of a city and all the rest of it. But also, it was the start, let's face it, of what we're seeing now. No armies really nowadays are large enough to have front lines as in the old days. Warfare is going to always be focused on cities. So urban warfare is the future, I'm afraid of warfare. And that is going to be the full focus in every single case.
58:33 Speaker 01 That's next time.
58:40 Speaker 01 If you can't wait a week until the next episode, you can listen to it right away by subscribing to Noiser Plus. Head to www-noiser.com/subscriptions for more information.
58:53 Speaker 03 Low energy, unfocused, foggy, you might be dehydrated. Gatorade Zero powders have been scientifically designed to help improve hydration balance in the body. With a clinically proven electrolyte blend and no artificial colors or flavors, great tasting hydration no matter where you're going. Shop now online or at retailers nationwide. Gatorade: Hydrates Better Than Water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.
Previous Butch Cassidy Next The Battle of Stalingrad Page updated November 4, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated