Quote of the day by Spanish painter, Pablo Picasso: 'Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up'

Pablo Picasso didn’t just make art. He changed how the world understood it. Long before the 20th century reached its halfway mark, the Spanish-born artist had already reshaped modern creativity with a style so bold and restless that it left critics arguing and admirers obsessed. From child prodigy to revolutionary innovator, Picasso’s journey mirrors the evolution of modern art itself. His influence stretched far beyond canvases, altering how people saw form, emotion, and imagination in an entirely new age.

Picasso once said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” This quote reflects his deep belief in instinctive creativity. Children create freely, without fear of judgment or rules. As people grow older, that freedom is often replaced by hesitation, conformity, and self-doubt. Picasso’s own life embodied this idea. Despite mastering classical techniques early on, he spent his adulthood unlearning rules, constantly returning to curiosity, play, and experimentation. The quote remains relevant today, reminding artists and non-artists alike that creativity thrives when imagination is protected rather than disciplined out of existence.

About Pablo Picasso

Picasso is widely regarded as the most important artistic figure of the 20th century. No artist before him commanded such global recognition while actively shaping multiple art movements. By the time he turned 50, his name had become synonymous with modern art, admired and debated in equal measure. What set Picasso apart was not just talent, but his refusal to stay still. He continuously reinvented himself, pushing against tradition and expectations at every stage of his career.


From a very young age, Picasso showed extraordinary ability. As a child and teenager, he painted in a naturalistic style that demonstrated remarkable technical control and realism. These early works reflected classical training and discipline, but they were only the starting point. In the first decade of the 20th century, Picasso began to experiment aggressively. His style shifted as he explored new theories, techniques, and ways of seeing the world, setting the stage for some of the most radical artistic developments of the time.


A strong influence in Picasso’s early life was his father, José Ruiz y Blasco. Ruiz was a painter known for his naturalistic depictions of birds and game and spent much of his life as an art professor at the School of Crafts and a curator at a local museum. He recognised his son’s talent early and nurtured it, providing both formal training and exposure to the artistic world. This foundation allowed Picasso to master traditional techniques before breaking away from them entirely.

As an innovator, Picasso went on to co-found the Cubist movement alongside French artist Georges Braque. Cubism became one of the most influential avant-garde art movements in history. It challenged centuries of artistic convention by breaking subjects and objects into fragmented pieces and reassembling them in abstract forms. Rather than presenting a single viewpoint, Cubism showed multiple perspectives at once, forcing viewers to rethink how reality could be represented.

Between roughly 1910 and 1920, when Picasso and Braque were developing Cubism in France, its impact spread rapidly across Europe. The movement didn’t just transform painting and sculpture. It influenced architecture, music, and literature, inspiring offshoots such as Futurism, Dada, and Constructivism in other countries. Few artistic ideas have ever had such wide-ranging and lasting effects.