3.3" Polished Picasso Marble Bear - Utah

About Picasso Marble

Picasso Marble from Utah is a striking ornamental stone prized for its dramatic abstract patterns of black, gray, tan, and cream—resembling brushstrokes in a modern painting, which inspired its name. Also sold under trade names such as Picasso Stone, Picasso Jasper (though it is not a jasper), or Painter’s Marble, this material is actually a metamorphosed limestone from the Mineral Mountains of southwestern Utah, primarily in Beaver County.

Its distinctive patterning formed when ancient limestone was subjected to intense heat, pressure, and mineral-rich fluids associated with Tertiary igneous intrusions. This metamorphic process recrystallized the limestone into marble and produced a network of fractures that later filled with dark minerals such as graphite, hematite, and iron oxides. The interplay of these mineral veins against the lighter marble matrix creates the sweeping, angular, painterly designs that make Utah Picasso Marble so recognizable.

Marble is a fairly common metamorphic carbonate rock created from pressure, heat, and other metamorphic forces acting on sedimentary carbonate rocks like limestone or dolomite. It consists mostly of recrystallized calcite, and can take on various colors caused by chemical impurities. It is often found in geographic locations associated with tectonic activity, such as mountain ranges and fault zones.

Because marble is formed from calcite, it is relatively soft and easy to carve, but its metamorphosed properties make it quite durable. This makes it perhaps the most popular sculpting rock in the world. It has been used for sculpture and construction for thousands of years: pure white marble was especially prized among the ancient Romans and Greeks, and many surviving structures and sculptures from the Classical era are made from it. Famous landmarks such as the Taj Mahal in India, the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy, the Parthenon in Greece, and even the Washington Monument in the United States are made almost entirely from marble.

Even today, marble can symbolize refinement and classical taste, and some of the highest quality marble in the world is found around the Mediterranean, particularly in Italy and Turkey. It is quarried and cut primarily for tiling and interior decoration, though it has industrial uses as aggregate for concrete and construction, and can be ground for use as mineral filler and pigment in some paints.