Pablo Picasso

The Profile

Spanish painter, sculptor and printmaker (1881–1973), co‑founder of Cubism.

Born in Málaga, Spain (1881). Died 1973. Guernica (1937) is held at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid. La Vie (1903) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Two dramatic, reflective reviews by Darius examine Picasso's engagement with war, death and the human condition. Guernica is read as a direct indictment of mass violence; La Vita is read through Blue Period themes of existential precariousness. Both reviews emphasize starkness, deformation and moral urgency.