Pablo Picasso – Genius or Arrogant Asshole?

Pablo Picasso

I recently heard a story about Pablo Picasso that has me thinking.  The story goes that Picasso, in his eighties at the time, was drinking at a bar in Paris when a woman recognized him and asked if he would sketch something for her on a napkin.  He obliged and did a quick sketch  (perhaps similar to the one shown below).  She was very excited but instead of him handing it back when he was done, he apparently tried to charge her a couple thousand dollars.  When she objected and said it only took a moment to sketch, he replied “No, it took me forty years.”

“Dove of Peace” Pablo Picasso

What!? Okay, okay, I get it.  He’s  world famous.  Everyone thinks he’s the shiz. He spent decades mastering his craft.   He wouldn’t be where he was in his career without those forty years of work and practice. But really?  Could he sound like a bigger dick?  Speaking of dick, one of Picasso’s most famous works depicts a woman with a dick on her face.  Seriously!  A dick on her face. See below.

“Le Reve” (The Dream) Pablo Picasso

Now, you may feel that I don’t have a right to talk shit about a “Master Painter”. I probably don’t.  Since I can remember, I was told that Picasso was a genius.  He broke the boundaries. You can’t go through an Art History or Art Appreciation class without getting more than your fill of all things Picasso. I have yet to be convinced.  I tried.  I really did.

I relate this same feeling to being a little girl and my mom serving me liver and onions.  I would cry and say I didn’t like it and refuse to eat it.  She would tell me that if I put ketchup on it, I would never know that it was liver and it would taste good.  Now I’m telling you, ketchup or no ketchup.  It tasted like shit. You get where I’m going with this…

Picasso was a master.  He put ketchup on the world of shitty art and made it taste good to his audience.  Kudos to him.  However, I can’t bear the thought that he was so conceited to try to charge a woman in a bar an exorbitant amount of money for something so simple.  Yes, yes.  She probably would have turned around and sold it for a large profit and Picasso was no fool.  He would have been aware of this.  So, if this story is true, why not just say “no” to this poor woman.  Did you want to get her hopes up only to make a fool of her?  I have made up my mind.

Pablo Picasso was an asshole.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this matter, but please don’t try to convince me otherwise.

Thank you.

24 comments

  1. He seriously did that?? Yep, I agree with you… He was most definitely an asshole… Lesson for the day… Don’t be a Picasso….

  2. Like you, I tried to see the “genius” in his art. Personally, I think it is trash. He fooled a lot of little pigs along the way and still does-surprisingly. After reading about him and his women, anyone with common sense can see he was an egotistical, master manipulator. A vitriolic sadist with obvious contempt for others. Quote ” women, to me, or either Goddesses or doormats”. They were all doormats to this sociopath. Enough said.

  3. If you think about this from the standpoint that this little scenario was most likely repeated numerous times per day, EVERY day, then it becomes easier to see from Picasso’s viewpoint. Picasso was one of the very few artists who was esteemed to that level in his own lifetime, and asking him for anything and expecting to receive it for nothing is going to water down the value of everything else he had produced. When a good portion of the value of an item is its relative scarcity, the last thing one wants is to flood the market. To me, the arrogance and penis-like qualities fall squarely on the person who is expecting to receive an object of great value (some of his cocktail napkin doodles have gone for tens of thousands of dollars) just
    for the asking.

  4. Is it OK to interrupt Sade and ask her to sing you a few notes?
    Would you approach Jorges Borges and request that he jot down a poem for you?
    You should be questioning the dreadful manners and appalling expectations of the imbecile who behaved this way, then find another excuse to “boldly” proclaim your disdain for Picasso and his art.
    When treated so rudely, Picasso was free to react however chose.

  5. I could not agree more. Picasso was a total and utter fraud and those who fell for his self indulgent bullshit “primitive” works and pornographic fingerpaintings and called them the work of a “genius” are as naive as were his teenage mistresses. He was an egomaniacal twat. Funny how he always seemed to be a resident of whatever country couldn’t draft him into any of the wars that he so objected to. I’m an Art Historian and I got SICK of having this guy’s CRAP shoved down my throat and declared the pinnacle of artistic achievement when what he was creating was so clearly GARBAGE!!! Before any of the Pablo loving trolls out there want to denigrate me for claiming that Picasso the Art Emperor is wearing no clothes by questioning my bona fides; Cum laude graduate of UCLA. Class of 2000.

  6. Yes, I believe the portrait as a penis is appro., as long as it’s a flaccid slip of a thing—to go along with the 40 years of experience.

  7. After viewing an exhibition in Montreal of Picasso yesterday, I couldn’t help but research Into into the “actual” Picasso. Between the praises of this so called “master,” there was this undisclosed truth. Paintings of his wife Olga depicted as this sharp fanged monster who was sucking the life out of poor poor Picasso seemed unreasonable considering she was a dedicated, loving wife and mother who by every right was pissed at his adulterous, manipulative ways. She was in pain, and he used this against her in his paintings! What an ass. He took joy in peoples pain, particularly woman. Which he is noted as boasting over. His sociopathic cold ways led to a large number of close family/friends to commit suicide. Even a child and grandchild. How disturbing is that?! His thirst for control and dominance was his driving force and his accumulation and disposal of human kindness and love (the soul) was a grotesque display of his inner workings. To me, Picasso took pleasure in producing shit pieces once he made a name for himself…and most likely laughed at the stupidity of those who praised him. Deep down inside he new he was no good. The joke is on all who put him on any kind of pedestal. He was a master of abuse and a master of crushing souls.

  8. You have it wrong. The woman that interrupted Picasso was the arrogant asshole – how presumptuous. His response was clever and eloquent, emphasizing a point the beggar in the story and the writer of this article can’t comprehend – the drawing on the napkin was always Picasso’s. How arrogant is it to to walk up to someone you don’t know and ask them for something but not offer anything in return. His response wasn’t rude – rude is the expectation you’ll get something for nothing.

  9. I’ve always hated Picasso. I can’t understand why Nat Geo’s series “Genius” would include such an awful human to be the focus of season 2, to be included in the ranks of Albert Einstein. He is only a genius manipulator and for that, I applaud him, as it is unfathomable to me as to how anyone could have such a lack of empathy for others while parading around with so much arrogance and overtly egotistical tendencies. It’s sad that our society gives so much recognition and positive attention to people with such demonic character traits. While I do think the woman asking for a sketch was a bit rude, I believe Picasso’s response was much ruder, horribly demeaning, and almost, if not completely, psychopathic. I don’t care how famous someone is, if they take the time to write a note or make a doodle for a fan, then they should have the decency to give the fan what he or she asked for. He could not possibly have been a bigger dick, except for the fact that he’s Picasso, so I’m sure he’s done much worse to others.

  10. Read the book “My Life With Picasso” written by a woman who lived with him for 10 years. No doubt about it, he was an arrogant jerk who loved to make other people feel like shit.

  11. ‘Pablo Picasso‘ the song was not BY David Bowie but by The Modern Lovers, who wrote the original. The song is very amusing and also ironic, btw. Not really about Pablo Picasso either.

    But anyhow I don’t know what people are getting steamed up about here, on either side of the ‘argument’. Picasso was one of the first artists to become a ‘celebrity’. He was also a pioneer contributor to modern art, even if he stole some of his ideas from Africa. Was he the ruthless exploiter of his fame, or its victim? Or both maybe? Or is the fan to blame? Arguments for all three of these positions can be fairly made. But shouldn’t art’s contradictory relationship to capital be the target instead? Ok, so you either like his art or you don’t and that’s fine, it’s all down to taste.

    The problem here is judging the artist not by his/her art, but by his/her personality and behaviour. And let’s face it, a great many artists are or were indeed assholes in their private lives, not just Picasso. Just look a few up! But should we judge their art by the same measure? I think that’s rather irrelevant and unjustifiable.

  12. On what metric can we judge Picasso’s artwork. I cannot say that I’ve seen any work from him that made me feel in awe or moved me to feel any strong feeling whatsoever. To me, that is a big part of being a successful artist- does your work inspire feeling. I wonder if anyone else feels differently. Picasso was was raised by a college art professor who helped him gain opportunity and notoriety at a very young age. He was cocky and arrogant. He talked a big game, he won the hearts and minds of critics, and was convinced that everything he touched or made had great value, and this egotistical assumption that he made about himself was reinforced by critics and collectors. I’d say Picasso was the Donald Trump of artists. Sadly no one ever put him in his place. I think soon the art world will grow tired of the tangent that Picasso took us on, and get back to the business of seeking artists who make us feel something rather than artists that critics and wealthy gallery owners and collectors tell us “has value.” Value to whom? I think we should buy art to hang it on our walls because we appreciate it and love to look at it- because we like the way it makes us feel. Not buy art to put in an airport storage garage in hopes that it will “appreciate.”

  13. He had great talent but didn’t use it. He was a gimmick artist. He knew he would be paid big bucks for his cubist works, which started as an experiment. They were mostly ugly, but he convinced the “in crowd” that they were wonderful. His lack of creativity was shown in his repetitiveness over the decades. The gimmick paid more than the art he put real effort into.

  14. I agree. His art sucked and he was an asshole. His treatment of women and his children is enough proof that Picasso was an asshole.

  15. I disagree, he knew his worth, and so did she and that is why she asked for a picture.
    Everyone wants something for nothing, and people take no consideration in how long it took you to learn your skill so that you can make it look easy or fast.
    People think they buy the product only (I’m a florist) not the years of skill or the products you use to create the item (art or for flowers, ribbon, wrap) etc

  16. Yes I agree, an arrogant narcissist with fuck all talent, just a good sense for business, he loved money and thought he deserved it all and treated everyone around him as subservient

  17. i was asked this morning if i would like to see the picasso exhibition now showing at the NGV in melbourne. ‘No way, i hate picasso’ i blurted out.
    why? hes a fraud?. As career artist and teacher myself now 72, i can spot a load of junk. Take the sheer brilliance of Arthur Streeton, Andrew Wyeth or Frank Lloyd Wright for instance and compare the cartoonish naive childlike garbage that picasso cocks up and how he masterly hoodwinked the art world.

  18. The sheer arrogance of some of these comments and the irony they represent in criticizing the pride of another—not to mention the hubris it takes to say that literally millions of people from all walks of life spanning a century who’ve either deeply adored or at the very least appreciated his art on an analytical level—are all a bunch of rubes “hoodwinked” by a conman with no talent, is so indigestible that I feel the rare obligation to reply with the following:

    If you don’t like something, quite possibly—though not necessarily—because you are letting your opinion of the artist as a person influence standing of their work, mayhap you should ruminate on the difference between objective and subjective analysis and how it pertains to your espoused views—views which I would not at all be surprised to witness you “shoving down the throat” (to paraphrase a comment anent having to learn about Picasso) of any who’ll listen to your rabid ranting over someone for whom perhaps just a BIT of jealousy exists, and should this not be the case and you simply do not appreciate his talent for less childish reasons, then at the very least remember that you, nor I, nor anyone have the authority or qualification to call objectively call someone’s life’s work “trash”. Who, exactly, so you think you are?

    Of course I qualify the above by saying “not necessarily” and such because to group all of his detractors under the same umbrella of self-coveted ignorance would make me guilty of the same shameful behavior as those who’d label a “fool” and hurl other such insults at anyone who’s ever felt a positive emotion from Picasso’s work for which, I’ll note again, are innumerable.

    Seriously: what incredible audacity.

    And while I try not to rest on arguments such as this, I feel compelled to quote Ian MacKay:

    “What the #%&@ have YOU done?”

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