Read the text below and answer the questions.
Pablo Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain.
When he was baptized, his name was 23
words long! Pablo Diego José Francisco
de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de
los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisima
Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruiz y
Picasso.
Picasso’s father was an artist and gave
Pablo art lessons. He finished his first
painting, Le Picador, when he was nine.
When he was 13, he was admitted to the
School of Fine Arts in Barcelona. At 16, he
went to Spain’s top art school, Madrid’s
Royal Academy of San Fernando.
In 1900, Picasso went to Paris where he
met Max Jacob, a journalist who helped
Picasso learn French. In 1905, some
American art collectors bought some
of Picasso’s paintings and he became
famous. Initially, Picasso painted in
a realistic manner but later his work
became more abstract.
Picasso co-founded the Cubist movement.
Cubism was a new way of painting,
in which artists would paint a person
or object from different angles using
geometric shapes. The artists created a
picture of something by breaking it up
into different blocks. Picasso (and other
artists) began to add other materials,
leading to the invention of collage.
Picasso died in France in 1973. Several
of his paintings are amongst the most
expensive in the world. More of his
paintings have been stolen than any
other artist’s.
Bronze:
a) How many words long was Picasso’s name?
b) What was his father’s job?
c) When and where did Picasso die?
d) Why do you think so many of his painting are stolen?
Silver:
a) What was his first painting called?
b) What is cubism?
c) Who taught Picasso French?
d) Define geometric and then use it in a sentence.
Gold
a) What can you infer about Picasso as a child and teenager?
b) Identify 3 fronted adverbials from the text.
c) Write 2 sentences about Picasso using parentheses.
Platinum
Use the information here to write a newspaper report about one of Picasso’s paintings being stolen from a museum.
