Picasso’s First Teacher: The Life of José Ruiz Blasco

Feature image: Pablo Picasso, Science and Charity, 1897 via WikiArt/Public Domain

Before Pablo Picasso became the most famous name in 20th-century art, he was a boy learning to paint from his father. That man, José Ruiz Blasco, was himself a painter, teacher, and museum curator. Though history has largely overlooked him, José played a profound role in shaping his son’s early genius, both through instruction and example. This is the story of the artist behind the prodigy.

Born in Málaga, Spain in 1838, José Ruiz Blasco came of age in a period when academic painting, faithful realism, balanced composition, and historical or still-life subjects were the standard. He trained at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Telmo. He later held teaching posts in cities across Spain, eventually settling in Málaga as a professor and museum curator.

His own artwork, while technically refined, was never radical. He painted doves, game birds, fruit bowls, and landscapes with careful precision and quiet dignity. Ruiz was not a groundbreaking artist, but he was a committed craftsman with a deep respect for tradition. His methodical, disciplined approach to painting would directly shape the environment his son grew up in.

Pablo Picasso, born in 1881, was the first child of José and María Picasso López. From the time he could hold a brush, Pablo watched his father sketch and paint. José took notice of his son's abilities almost immediately, guiding him with formal instruction in anatomy, shadowing, and proportion.

There is a widely repeated (though possibly apocryphal) story that José gave up painting the day he saw his 13-year-old son complete a study of pigeons that surpassed his own. Whether literal or symbolic, the story reflects a poignant truth: José recognized that his son’s talent was extraordinary and chose to support that brilliance rather than compete with it.

Among the many quiet echoes of José’s influence in Picasso’s work, none is more symbolic than the dove. José frequently painted doves in his still lifes, an interest rooted in Andalusian tradition and his own personal aesthetic. Years later, Picasso would return to the dove not only as a subject, but as a symbol. His famous Dove of Peace, drawn in 1949 and adopted as the emblem of the World Peace Congress, is arguably one of his most widely recognized images. The lineage of that dove traces straight back to his father’s canvases.

José’s art embodied restraint and academic principles. Picasso, by contrast, seemed born to break every rule. After mastering realism at a young age, he tore through art history’s conventions, embracing Symbolism, Cubism, Surrealism, and forms that hadn’t yet been named. While José emphasized proportion, naturalism, and structure, Picasso pushed toward fragmentation, emotion, and abstraction.

This dynamic reveals something deeply psychological. Picasso’s artistic rebellion was not only generational, but deeply personal. He revered his father, but he also broke from him. Where José taught clarity, Picasso pursued chaos. Yet this rebellion could not have existed without the solid foundation José had built for him. In many ways, the father’s conservatism provided the perfect foil for the son’s revolution.

For Picasso, the studio was sacred, filled with the tools, rituals, and solitude of creation. That reverence likely began in his father's workspace. As a child, Picasso watched José grind pigments, sketch doves, and paint in the still morning light. It wasn’t just the act of painting that captivated him, but the environment, the silence, the patience, the rhythm of repetition. These early memories imprinted a sense of devotion that stayed with him, long after his style and subjects changed. 

In 1895, after several teaching stints in Málaga and La Coruña, José moved the family to Barcelona. He had accepted a professorship at the School of Fine Arts (La Llotja), and it was this move that changed everything. The city was a hotbed of Catalan Modernism, a place where Gaudí’s buildings rose like dreams and cafés buzzed with intellectual life.

Thanks to José’s position, Picasso was admitted to La Llotja at just 13 years old, a staggering exception for someone so young. He quickly outpaced his peers, and his technical ability astonished the faculty. From there, Picasso entered the artistic circles of Els Quatre Gats and began his ascent to modernist legend. Without José’s career move and his belief in his son, that early exposure may never have happened.

Despite his role in Picasso’s formation, José Ruiz Blasco’s own work has largely disappeared from public memory. His paintings, when they do appear in exhibitions or archives, are often included simply as context for Picasso’s childhood. His legacy is not his own body of work, but the spark he lit in someone else.

There’s something undeniably bittersweet about this. José dedicated himself to teaching art, and his greatest student surpassed every boundary imaginable. He faded into history as Picasso’s early tutor, a role both humble and heroic.

José Ruiz Blasco died in 1913. By then, Picasso had already co-founded Cubism, exhibited in Paris, and become one of the most talked-about artists in Europe. He would go on to live another sixty years, his fame growing with each decade. Yet in interviews, writings, and even brushstrokes, echoes of his father remained.

Whether it was the dove, the early discipline, or the artist’s life itself, Picasso never fully abandoned the lessons of José. His career may have been shaped by genius, but that genius was nurtured by a quiet, devoted father who believed art mattered, and passed that belief on to his son.

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