Pablo Picasso remains one of our favorite artist of all time. We were thrilled to come upon this gallery of him painting with light. In it, he shows the power of a single stroke, and the way even a fleeting medium like light can make a lasting impression.
Take a look at the fascinating images below.
“Pablo Picasso’s experimentation with light painting is a fascinating chapter in the history of art. In 1949, Picasso was introduced to the technique of light drawing by Gjon Mili, a photographer and lighting innovator.
Mili visited Picasso in the South of France and showed him some photographs of ice skaters with lights attached to their skates, taken in the dark. He captured the light trails left by the moving skaters in long-exposure photographs.”
LIFE magazine’s Gjon Mili, a technical prodigy and lighting innovator, visited Pablo Picasso in the South of France in 1949. The meeting of these two marvelous minds and sensibilities was bound to result in something extraordinary. Mili showed the artist some of his photographs of ice skaters with tiny lights affixed to their skates, jumping in the dark — and Picasso’s lively mind began to race.
“Picasso gave Mili 15 minutes to try one experiment,” LIFE wrote in its January 30, 1950, issue in which the images shown here first appeared. He was so fascinated by the results that he posed for five sessions.”