
Pablo PicassoSpanish, 1881–1973May one see it?
Moscow, Russia
The owner is known. Whether it is on view today, the museum does not say, and we were not trained to guess.
Old Jewish Man with a Boy or Blind Beggar with a Boy is an oil on canvas painting by Pablo Picasso, from 1903. It was made in Barcelona, Spain, and characteristic of his Blue Period. Picasso later moved to Paris, where he sold the work to Sergei Shchukin, whose collection was seized by the Soviet state after the October Revolution, which assigned it to its present home in the Pushkin Museum, in Moscow.
1895–1904 · Workplace
Barcelona
autumn 1901
The Absinthe Drinker Painted
During his second trip to Paris, the twenty-year-old Picasso painted The Absinthe Drinker, one of the key works on the theme of human loneliness in the café.
17 February 1901
Suicide of Carlos Casagemas
The suicide of his close friend Carlos Casagemas deeply shook the young Picasso and became one of the impulses behind the Blue Period.
1901–1904
The Blue Period
The Blue Period began — somber paintings in blue-green tones with themes of poverty and sorrow; Picasso divided his time between Barcelona and Paris.
1904
Move to Paris, Beginning of the Rose Period
Picasso settled in the Bateau-Lavoir residence in Montmartre; the sorrow of the Blue Period gave way to images of the theater and the circus — the Rose Period began.
1905
Meeting the Steins and Matisse
Picasso became a favorite of the collectors Leo and Gertrude Stein; at one of Gertrude Stein's gatherings in 1905 he met Henri Matisse — a lifelong friend and rival.