Pablo Picasso was born on October 25, 1881 in Malaga, Spain. He was the first child of Jose Ruiz y Blasco and Maria Picasso y Lopez. Picasso's father was a painter whose specialty was the naturalistic depiction of birds, and who for most of his life was also a professor of art at the School of Crafts and a curator of a local museum. The young Picasso showed a passion and a skill for drawing from an early age; according to his mother, his first word was "piz," a shortening of lapiz, the Spanish word for pencil. It was from his father that Picasso had his first formal academic art training, such as figure drawing and painting in oil.
Picasso's artistic production is usually described in terms of a series of overlapping periods,such as the Blue Period, the Rose Period and his most famous contribution to modern art, Cubism. Although greatly influenced by other artists in Europe and beyond, Picasso was inventive and prolific, and early in his career earned a worldwide reputation as an innovator. Picasso was a Spanish painter and sculptor. One of the most recognized figures in 20th century art, he is best known as the co-founder of cubism. It has been estimated that Picasso produced about 13,500 paintings or designs, 100,000 prints or engravings, 34,000 book illustrations and 300 sculptures or ceramics.