PABLO PICASSO IN BARCELONA
Picasso 1881-1973, was 13 when he arrived in Barcelona, where his father, Jose´Ruiz y Blasco, had found work teaching in the city art school situated above the Llotja. The city was rich, but it also possessed a large, poor working class which was becoming organized and starting to rebel. Shortly after the family´s arrival, a bomb was thrown into a Corpus Christi procession. They settled at No 3 Carrer de la Merce´, a gloomy, five-storeyed house not far from the Llotja. Picasso´s precocious talent gave him admittance to the upper school, where all the other pupils were aged at least 20. Here he immediately made friends with another artist, Manuel Pallares Grau, and the two lost their virginity to the whores of Carrer dÁvinyo, who were to inspire Les Demoiselles dÁvignon (1906-7), considered by many art critics to be the wellspring of modern art. Picasso travelled with Pallares to the Catalan´s home town of Horta, where he painted some early landscapes, now in the Museu Picasso. The two remained friends for the rest of their lives.