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Pablo Picasso

Biography:

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso was born in Málaga, Spain. When he was baptized, he was named after various saints and relatives: Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso. His father, Jose Ruiz Blasco, was an artist and art professor who gave Pablo art lessons. His mother was Maria Picasso y Lopez. According to his mother, his first word was “piz” when he was trying to say “lápiz,” the Spanish word for pencil.

Le Picador

When he was nine, Picasso finished his first painting, Le picador. It shows a man on a horse at a bullfight. When he started painting, he used a realistic style. He began to experiment with different techniques and styles. When he was 13, he was admitted to the School of Fine Arts in Barcelona, Spain. When he was 16, Picasso’s father and uncle decided to send him to Madrid’s Royal Academy of San Fernando. This was Spain’s top art school. He did not like formal instruction and soon stopped going to classes. He loved Madrid and enjoyed going to The Prado museum to see paintings by famous Spanish painters. He particularly like El Greco’s work.

Blue Hat

In 1900, Picasso went to Paris. He met Max Jacob, a journalist and poet. Max helped Picasso learn to speak French. He also met many of the famous artists who lived in Paris. In 1905, American art collectors Leo and Gertrude Stein began to collect his work and helped to make him famous.

First Steps

He and Georges Braque invented Cubism, a form of painting that featured simple geometric shapes. He is also known for making collages – gluing previously unrelated things together with images. He created oil paintings, sculpture, drawings, stage designs, tapestries, rugs, etchings, collage, and architecture. No other painter or sculptor was as famous while he was still alive. It is estimated that Picasso produced at least 50,000 works of art: 1,885 paintings; 1,228 sculptures; 2,880 ceramics, roughly 12,000 drawings, many thousands of prints, and numerous tapestries and rugs. He also wrote plays and poetry. He became very wealthy.

Picasso was married twice.  He had four children: Paulo, Maya, Claude and Paloma, who is famous for her jewelry designs. He died April 8, 1973 in Mougins, France.

(Pablo Picasso Biography for Kids from Mr. Nussbaum.com) 

Cubism: 

Cubism is a style of art which aims to show all of the possible viewpoints of a person or an object all at once. It is called Cubism because the items represented in the artworks look like they are made out of cubes and other geometrical shapes. Cubism was first started by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Analytical Cubism is the first type of cubism. Most analytical Cubists painted and drew in monochrome (only one colour) so that the person who was looking at the painting did not pay attention to colour, but only to the shapes and the forms that were being shown.

This was changed in 1912 when Picasso first started painting with colours and using collages. Collage is when you glue together different cut-up pieces of paper to make an artwork. This new form of Cubism was called Synthetic Cubism. Picasso invented collage because he was tired of the way he was making his art, and wanted to try out something new. Pablo Picasso created over 20,000 pictures. From 1912 to 1919 was Picasso's Synthetic Cubism Period.

(Cubism definition from Wikipedia) 

This "Picasso" was created with the Picassohead Picasso Creator at Picassohead.com.

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Alexander Calder

Biography: 

Alexander Calder

Alexander Calder (1898 - 1976) was an American sculptor
who was best known for inventing the mobile, or art that moves.

As a child, Alexander enjoyed making things from old dishes and pieces of wire.  He also loved to make contraptions from collections of scraps and junk.

Duck 1909

When Alexander was four years old, he created his first sculpture; a clay elephant.  In the fourth grade, he created a sculpture of a dog and a duck out of brass.  The duck was able to rock back and forth, which is an early example of Alexander's interest in kinetic (moving) art.

"Polychrome and Horizontal Bluebird"

As Alexander got older, he decided to pursue a career in art, and started creating larger mobiles that were sometimes several feet long.  These mobiles usually consisted of metal plates, wires and rods and were moved by the air or by the help of a gentle push of the hand.

"Horizontal"

During the last twenty years of Alexander's life, he created monumental sculptures.  These were very large, mainly outdoor piece of work.  They would sit outside museums or corporate headquarter buildings.  Alexander would start with a small-scale design and then have the large-sale version fabricated by ironworkers.

Alexander Calder was a very prolific artist who never went anywhere without a pair of pliers in his pocket.

Links:

Calder.org

Making Art Fun:  Alexander Calder

Online Mobile Maker

Teaching Stars - Adventures in Art with Alexander Calder

Photos:

"Finny's Fish"

Untitled - Calder Mobile at National Gallery

"Flamingo"   Kluczynski Federal Building - Chicago, Illinois

"The Star"

"Calder's Circus"  Whitney Museum of American Art

Currier and Ives

Biography:

James Merritt Ives

"Currier and Ives" was an American printmaking firm owned and operated by Nathaniel Currier (1813-1888) and James Merritt Ives (1824-1895).

Nathaniel Currier

Nathaniel Currier became an apprentice at the age of 15 at a Boston lithography shop, learning the process of printing.  In 1834, he started his own printing business in New York City, later to be joined by James Ives.  The firm Currier & Ives, produced prints from artists' paintings as black and white lithographs, then hand colored them. The prints could be reproduced quickly and inexpensively, thus they called themselves, "Publishers of Cheap and Popular Pictures".  Their work became so popular they became known as Printmakers to the American People for their pictures depicting 19th century American life; winter scenes, ships, railroad, and historical events.


Lithography:  
A method of printing from a flat surface (such as a smooth stone or metal plate) that has been specially treated to retain ink while the non image areas are treated to repel ink.




Click here for photographs of the Lithography process.

Click here for Currier and Ives History (Video)

Currier and Ives Prints:

American Express Train  



  The American National Game of Baseball

Horse Drawn Sleigh

Horse Drawn Sleigh Coloring Page