Skip to Main Content

Portraits à la Picasso

Students will explore portraits painted by Pablo Picasso and create their own Picasso-inspired artwork.

Lesson Plan

Supplies Needed

Gather all the supplies needed to bring your craft ideas to life! From paints and markers to glue and scissors, our crafts section has everything to spark creativity and make every project truly special.

Steps

  • Step 1

    Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was a Spanish painter and co-creator (with French artist Georges Braque) of cubism, an avant-garde art movement in which images are analyzed, broken up, and reassembled in an abstract form. It began in the early 20th century in France, where Picasso then called home. Have students investigate his life and view some of his cubist portraits such as "Girl with a Mandolin," "Portrait de Dora Maar," "Woman Sitting in Blue Armchair" or any others. Have them note the fragmentation and reassembly of figures or objects and how they are depicted from multiple perspectives.

  • Step 2

    Ask students to create a portrait in the cubist style where the subject is broken down and rearranged in a non-representational way. 

  • Step 3

    Have students present their art and talk about their process. Were they able to make the features in their abstract art evoke a feeling or sense of movement? How does the abstraction and deconstruction of a face or body affect the viewer's perception of the subject?

Standards

ARTS: Speculate about processes an artist uses to create a work of art. 

ARTS: Explore and invent art-making techniques and approaches. 

Adaptations

"Guernica" is a painting by Picasso done in 1937. It is an anti-war painting created in response to the 1937 bombing of the town of Guernica in northern Spain by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Have students investigate its history and how the touring exhibition helped bring worldwide attention to the Spanish Civil War that took place from 1936 to 1939.

Have students learn about and view some works by Georges Braque, the co-developer of cubism. Have them also learn about and view examples of Fauvism, which comprised the early works of Braque.