When Pablo Picasso died in 1973, the world mourned a superstar - a revolutionary creative powerhouse who repeatedly turned 20th century art on its head. But since then, the stories of his cruelty, womanising, coercive behaviour, and cultural appropriation have made us call into question our reverence of the great master. Now, fifty years since his death, a new three-part series lays bare the life and work of a man who was as much monster as genius and looks at his legacy; the suicides and betrayals alongside the stunning artworks that he left behind.
Picasso lived through two world wars and documented a century of war, despair, peace and hope - shapeshifting through periods of Blue to Rose, Cubism, neo-Classicism and into the avant-garde. He created many of the greatest artworks of the 20th century: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Weeping Woman and Guernica. In a career that spanned eight decades he created some 150,000 pieces - enough to fill an aircraft hangar. His art could be brutal, depicting violence and lust, but he also captured beauty and innocence like no-one else. And his personal life was equally full of contradictions.
