Legend has it that Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon shocked those who first saw it in his Paris studio in 1907. It marked a dramatic break from traditional composition and perspective in painting with its five nude women composed of flat, splintered planes. Its title, which refers to sex workers in Barcelona’s red-light district, amplified its disquieting effect. Picasso didn’t publicly exhibit Demoiselles for almost nine years after its completion, as though he knew how radically ahead of its time it was. Today its boldly confrontational character remains undiminished, as do the challenges it poses to idealized notions of beauty and to stylistic unity, with references ranging from Iberian and African art to El Greco paintings.
Picasso began making sketches and preparatory studies for Demoiselles in the winter of 1906, producing hundreds before arriving at the final composition—then his largest and most ambitious work. Here the monumental painting is presented with several of its studies, along with selected works created immediately before and after Demoiselles.
Organized by Ann Temkin, The Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture, with Rachel Remick, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Painting and Sculpture.
