The Culture, Traditions, and Heritage of Spain

Cubism and Picasso

In the 1890s, a new style of painting called “cubism” became popular. An object in a cubist painting looks like it has been broken into small pieces and stuck together again. One of the inventors of cubism was painter and sculptor Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). Picasso was born in Málaga, in the south of Spain. Many people think he was the most important artist of the 20th century, and that his painting Guernica is one of the most significant works of art. Picasso created Guernica in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, for a fair in Paris, France. It is a disturbing mural of a town bombed during the war.