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The Most Important Artist Of The 20th Century

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Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish painter, who is widely acknowledged to be the most important artist of the 20th century. A long-lived and highly prolific artist, he experimented with a wide range of styles and themes throughout his career. Among Picasso 's many contributions to the history of art, his most important include pioneering the modern art movement called Cubism, inventing collage as an artistic technique, and developing assemblage (constructions of various materials) in sculpture. Picasso was born Pablo Ruiz in Malaga, Spain. He later adopted his mother 's more distinguished maiden name-Picasso-as his own. Though Spanish by birth, Picasso lived most of his life in France. The character of the painting is Dora Maar, the photographer and painter who was Picasso 's lover and the principal model for many of his so-called weeping women portraits in the late 1930 's and early 40 's, died this month in her Left Bank apartment. She was 89.Le Monde reported that she died on July 16.Miss Maar was a recognized photographer and a well-known figure in Surrealist circles when she met Picasso at Les Deux Magots, the St.-Germain-des-Pres cafe, in 1936. During the decade that followed she also exercised considerable political influence over the artist, persuading him to join the French Communist Party in October 1944.But after Picasso ended their relationship, replacing her with Francoise Gilot as a lover and muse, she suffered frequent bouts of depression and opted

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