Pablo Ruiz Picasso is a Spanish painter, draughtsman and sculptor who has spent most of his life in France. He was encouraged in his artistic vocation by his father, a drawing teacher. In 1901 he moved to Paris and decided to spend the rest of his life in France. He initiated the Cubist movement, breaking the traditional laws of Western painting; the objects represented are 'flattened' on the canvas so that all their angles are visible simultaneously. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' of 1907 inaugurated this revolutionary technique, probably inspired by African arts or 'primitive arts'. Tempted for a while by surrealism, the political news catches up with him: he is alarmed by the rise of fascism in Europe and particularly in Spain. The 1936 painting 'Guernica' was created following the announcement of a massacre perpetrated by Franco's troops in a village of the same name. The work was quickly established as a symbol of the Resistance. Picasso also engaged in photography, sculpture and engraving. Through his profound and constantly renewed analysis of the stakes of representation, Picasso is one of the greatest painters of the 20th century. His plastic work - painting, sculpture, engraving, ceramics - crosses various artistic currents - cubism, surrealism - without ever confining himself to them. Throughout his life, Picasso engaged in a close dialogue with the image, and challenged the viewer's gaze, from the first drawings of picadors in his native Spain, to the moving self-portraits of recent years, the ultimate reflection on painting. He is one of the most important artists of the 20th century, both in terms of his technical and formal contributions and his political stance. He has produced 50,000 works, including about 8,000 paintings.