Picasso was exceptionally prolific throughout his long lifetime. The total number of artworks he produced has been estimated at 50,000, comprising 1,885 paintings; 1,228 sculptures; 2,880 ceramics, roughly 12,000 drawings, many thousands of prints, and numerous tapestries and rugs.^[67]

The medium in which Picasso made his most important contribution was painting.^[68] In his paintings, Picasso used color as an expressive element, but relied on drawing rather than subtleties of color to create form and space.^[68] He sometimes added sand to his paint to vary its texture. A nanoprobe of Picasso’s The Red Armchair (1931) by physicists at Argonne National Laboratory in 2012 confirmed art historians’ belief that Picasso used common house paint in many of his paintings.^[69] Much of his painting was done at night by artificial light.