In 1970, three years before his death, Picasso donated to Barcelona more than a thousand works which his family had kept in that city. These works make up the single most important collection of his early art, and they illustrate in detail Picasso's evolution from his first drawings in Malaga and Coruna up to the sketches, watercolors, pastels, and other drawings he left behind in Barcelona when he departed for Paris in 1904. Like many towering geniuses, Picasso is often taken for granted, but upon a close inspection of his early art it becomes evident why his figure looms so large. Put simply, Picasso was able at the age of fourteen to master draftsmanship and representation to such a degree that his art of that period rivals many traditional artists' best work. This book is the first fully illustrated publication in English to adequately address the great wealth of work he produced in his youth, and it reveals perhaps the least appreciated period of his immense oeuvre. Far more than a collection of incidental juvenilia, this book demonstrates how Picasso's early years displayed budding genius, and led to the forming of his later sensibility.