Picasso's One-Liners

by Pablo Picasso (Artist), Susan Grace Galassi (Introduction)

Picasso's "one-liners" constitute a small but delightful contribution to the artist's great body of drawings. His preeminence as a draughtsman has long been recognized, but the unique nature of his one-liners has never been fully examined, or collected together in a single volume. Picasso's One-Liners, featuring fifty drawings, offers a fascinating look at this whimsical side of Picasso's work. Defined simply, one-liners are drawings in which the artist's drawing implement touches the paper and is not lifted until the drawing is finished. Picasso worked this way in a variety of media, including pencil, pen and ink, brush, and crayon and his subjects included harlequins, musicians, circus scenes, and animals. Each drawing is worth careful study, for by following the vibrant line closely, one's eyes take a wonderful rollercoaster ride. Along with the "one-liner" art are quotes taken from Picasso's writing, giving full flavor to the influence of the art and the man.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

80 pages, Hardcover

First published January 5, 1997

About the author

Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) and the anti-war painting Guernica (1937), a dramatic portrayal of the bombing of Guernica by German and Italian air forces during the Spanish Civil War.
Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years, painting in a naturalistic manner through his childhood and adolescence. During the first decade of the 20th century, his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas. After 1906, the Fauvist work of the older artist Henri Matisse motivated Picasso to explore more radical styles, beginning a fruitful rivalry between the two artists, who subsequently were often paired by critics as the leaders of modern art.
Picasso's output, especially in his early career, is often periodized. While the names of many of his later periods are debated, the most commonly accepted periods in his work are the Blue Period (1901–1904), the Rose Period (1904–1906), the African-influenced Period (1907–1909), Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), and Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919), also referred to as the Crystal period. Much of Picasso's work of the late 1910s and early 1920s is in a neoclassical style, and his work in the mid-1920s often has characteristics of Surrealism. His later work often combines elements of his earlier styles.
Exceptionally prolific throughout the course of his long life, Picasso achieved universal renown and immense fortune for his revolutionary artistic accomplishments, and became one of the best-known figures in 20th-century art.

Reviews

[Dayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

beauty in a single line, how symbolic

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun book!