Picasso’s early masterpiece conceals a long-lost secret

Picasso's Blue Period was inspired by loss

Picasso's friend Casagemas, a poet he met in Barcelona, died by suicide in 1901. The event shook the young Picasso, leading to what would later be called his Blue Period. The work from this time reflected the loss of Casagemas and others, as well as broader themes of suffering and marginalization in society, portraying their faces and other outcasts of society in elegiac hues of blue and other cold colors. The era is one of the artist’s most famous bodies of work, including several iconic paintings, such as "The Death of Casagemas," pictured below.

Picasso had several distinct periods

Picasso was known for his ever-evolving style, which art historians have often divided into his artistic periods. Warmer color palettes and subjects characterized his Pink Period (sometimes called the Rose Period). Other phases focused on neoclassical, surrealist, and mythological art and subjects. Below is Family of Saltimbanques from the Pink Period.

Picasso's 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' is seen as the start of cubism

The 1907 work rejects many of the art world norms of the time, like linear perspective and realistic depictions of light. Picasso's painting also nods to African masks, demonstrating a willingness to indulge in styles outside the Western canon.

Picasso’s legacy is often intertwined with his personal relationships

Family revelations and quotes show the legendary artist as both tender and cruel, and his fame and romantic advances sometimes had disastrous effects on those around him.

See some of Picasso's most famous works

Picasso is one of history’s most famous painters. He redefined the standards of artistic beauty and forged a unique, revolutionary modern style. Today, he inspires artists looking to challenge the status quo. The Museu Picasso in Barcelona, the artist’s hometown, holds nearly 5,000 of Picasso’s early works, making it the perfect place to glimpse the ideas and range of his artistic practice. Below is 1917's "Fruit Bowl."

Picasso was on trial for the theft of the 'Mona Lisa'

On August 22, 1911, the world was stunned by the theft of the "Mona Lisa" from the Louvre in Paris. As an international investigation searched for the culprit, a young Picasso was suspected to be part of a group of its thieves. While innocent in the disappearance of the Mona Lisa, he found himself on trial with reasonable suspicion: He was in possession of two Iberian statues that were the property of the same museum.

Picasso was initially ignored by the US art market

Picasso’s now-iconic style was radical for its time and, as such, was something the US art market initially ignored. Hugh Eakin, author of “Picasso’s War: How Modern Art Came to America,” tells the story of the social norms, tax laws, and influential figures like lawyer John Quinn that set the course for modern art in America in the early 1900s.

Picasso was also a poet

In addition to his painting, Picasso wrote poetry, including several works that were published by his friend André Breton, founder of the surrealist movement, who described reading the poems as “being in the presence of an intimate journal, both of the feelings and of the senses, such as has never been kept before.”

His father, an art instructor, taught him to paint

Picasso’s talent was evident from an early age. With the encouragement and instruction of his father, an artist and art instructor, he developed classical techniques that often surprise those only familiar with his abstract works.

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

In 1949, photography changed Picasso's perspective

Picasso never stopped experimenting, moving through new and familiar styles and materials throughout his life. Despite that, most people only associate Picasso with painting. But in 1949, a chance encounter with Albanian-American photographer Gjon Mili brought yet another medium into Picasso’s world: light.

The history of iconic pigments used in seven famous paintings

While art paints can be bought by the bucket at any craft store today, pigments throughout history have been difficult to come by. Art historian Kelly Grovier traces the fascinating history of pigments that make up hidden layers in masterpieces from Picasso and Hokusai’s Prussian Blue to Vermeer’s shade of red.

Trove of posthumous paintings reveals Basquiat's technical skill and process

The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art exhibited 50 paintings by the artist in 2026 that had not been shown before. Focused primarily on heads and anatomy, the artworks are touched with signs of his process: smudges, footprints, splashes. The exhibit is annotated with comments from contemporary artists on Basquiat's visionary skill, with some describing him as one of the world's greatest. View a sampling and read more about them here.

Scientists used mass spectrometry to determine the materials in a 1690 painting

Previously used to map the distribution of molecules on biological tissue samples, researchers combined the technique with machine learning to uncover six layers of pigments, binders, and a thin gold leaf layer within *The Marriage of the Virgin*, from a collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The technique may help identify and track artists' material use to learn about pieces of unknown provenance. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

One Mary Cassatt painting features a sly political message

Critics had long been puzzled by the unrealistic flower pinned to the woman's chest in the 1905 painting "Mother and Child." In exploring the painting's history, researcher Nikki Georgopulos discovered that the flower alluded to a women's suffrage badge popular at the time, something Cassatt emphasized in the painting's original title, "Woman With a Sunflower."

Jeff Bezos has an art collection worth hundreds of millions

The collection includes an oil painting by Pablo Picasso that was once part of Picasso's personal collection. Bezos purchased the painting in a 2023 Sotheby's auction.

'Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.'

- Legendary artist Picasso (1881–1973)

The ideas of Einstein and Freud combined in 'The Persistence of Memory'

The Persistence of Memory was painted on a canvas roughly the size of a sheet of paper, depicting a desolate landscape with melting clocks, ants, and a distorted figure. The piece incorporates Freud and Einstein's ideas, resulting in a haunting composition symbolizing time's fluidity and Dalí's personal anxieties.

This famous painting was hung upside-down for 77 years

According to a curator at a German museum, an abstract painting by Dutch artist Piet Mondrian has been displayed upside down for seventy-seven years at a number of museums.

Mary Cassatt's mural from the 1893 World's Fair mysteriously disappeared

The massive mural was called "Modern Woman" and was displayed in the Woman's Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, better known as the Chicago World's Fair. When the fair closed in October of that year, the mural was put into storage, but it later went missing. It hasn't been located since. All that remains are black and white photos of it, like the one below.

The scientists trying to prove Jackson Pollock's symbolism

Jackson Pollock is one of the most famous American artists in history. He is well-known for his Abstract Expressionist "drip paintings," which seemed to defy interpretation. But following the artist's posthumous bipolar diagnosis, a team of scientists attempted to prove that his symptoms, including mania and psychosis, caused Pollock to embed images under his thrown paint.

A cave painting might be the oldest illustrated story ever recorded

A nearly 44,000-year-old cave painting may be the oldest story ever recorded, offering viewers a tale of human-like creatures on a hunt. This article details the discovery of the cave and its archaeological implications.

Georgia O'Keeffe's flower paintings are often assumed to be sexual, though the artist claimed she was simply interested in highlighting the beauty of flowers that most people neglect

Ancient Greek and Roman sculptures were likely colorful, not white

Archaeologists stumbling upon statues from ancient Greece often found weathered creatures, their faces and figures marred by age and conflict. But evidence of polychromy—painting sculptures with color—has continued to mount.

Salvador Dalí’s remains were exhumed for a paternity test

Years after Dalí’s death in 1989, fortune teller Pilar Abel filed a suit claiming she was the child of an affair Dalí had with her mother. In 2017, Dalí’s body was exhumed for testing. Dalí was not the father, but the artist’s mustache remained intact decades after his passing.

Margaret Keane outwitted her plagiarist husband by recreating her work in a courtroom

The artist, known for her portraits of large-eyed children, sued her ex-husband, who claimed he was the real artist. The judge asked them to both paint in court to demonstrate the real artist. Her ex-husband declined; Keane painted a work in 53 minutes and was awarded $4M.

Photographer finds 120-year-old time capsule, develops the photos

Photographer Mathieu Stern found a century-old time capsule in his family home containing a little girl’s mementos and two glass plate negatives. He used Cyanotype to develop the photographs, unveiling images of the child’s pets. Stern documented the process in a video on YouTube and Instagram, showcasing the final prints of the animals.

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

One of the most famous portraits ever taken is 'Afghan Girl' (1984) by Steve McCurry, yet the subject Sharbat Gula went much of her life without being identified or benefitting from the image's success.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

Walt Disney's early film 'Alice's Wonderland' was a groundbreaking innovation in the silent film era

Against his wishes, Albert Einstein's brain was removed before his cremation, and the pathologist responsible stored it for decades in mason jars within a beer cooler.

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

See these 16 pieces of art evoking phobias of snakes, flying, spiders, and more. 

'Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,' a work by American painter Thomas Moran, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park.

In 1915, workers recovered a submarine-like vessel from the Chicago River, prompting fears of German espionage

In 1963, a basement renovation in Turkey revealed a passageway to a hidden, multilevel underground city that once housed as many as 20,000 people

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

In 2009, the nation was gripped by the story of a missing young boy who was believed to be floating over Colorado in a homemade balloon, until it was revealed that he was at home the whole time.

Recent research found that the brain doesn't seem to massively rewire following amputation—upending earlier beliefs about the cause of phantom limb pain.

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

Hear about the 250-year history of the United States Postal Service, complete with some of its strangest deliveries, important innovations, and the figures that made it an American institution.

Explore our favorite visualization of the immense scale of space, from an astronaut to the size of the observable universe

Larger animals like giraffes, elephants, and blue whales have developed a unique defense against cancer, a phenomenon known as Peto's Paradox

This site reaches millions of visitors who are tired of AI chatbots and seeking human connection. Pretend to be an AI chatbot and ask questions, provide answers, and draw for people in real time.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.