ABSTRACT
An essentially twentieth-century and comparatively unusual phenomenon is represented in the attention paid by artists, historians and critics to the juvenile works of Pablo Picasso. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, he has remained the most widely known as well as the most controversial artist of his time, and the only one of such stature whose juvenile works have been seriously analysed for their significance as precursors of later achievements. Picasso's biographers portray a fairly arrogant young man at this stage, impatient to be admitted to the Barcelona school, something of a braggart about his past achievements and contemptuous of the ability of La Llotja to do much for him. By his fifteenth birthday, the young Picasso had acquired a remarkable level and repertoire of competence as an artist, which would equip him to undertake in due course almost any kind of painting and drawing which might become of interest.
