Picasso's Legacy: 140,000 Works, Record Auctions, and Guernica's Journey

Key facts

• Pablo Picasso produced over 140,000 artworks, including 13,500 paintings, 100,000 prints and engravings, hundreds of sculptures, and thousands of ceramics.
• Picasso co-founded Cubism and modern collage with Georges Braque.
• Guernica (1937) was first unveiled at the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 Paris International Exposition and was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City for four decades before being returned to Spain in 1981.
• Guernica is now on view at the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid.
• Les Femmes d'Alger (Version 'O') (1955) sold for $179.4 million at Christie's in New York City in 2015, breaking the record for the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction.
• That record was broken in 2017 by Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi, which sold for $450.3 million.
• Picasso's second-highest sale was Femme au béret et au chapeau cassé (Woman with a Watch), which sold for $139.3 million at Sotheby's in 2023.
• Picasso was a millionaire by age 37 and controlled the supply of his art to drive up prices.