Picasso Guitars 1912–1914

Like pieces of a crude jigsaw puzzle, the cut-and-pasted components of Musical Score and Guitar fit together in a summary account of an instrument's contours. The rectangle of paper at the center of this composition bears the work's only hand-drawn graphic elements: two charcoal lines, possibly representing the strings, sound hole, or f-holes of this violin-guitar. Like his friend the artist Georges Braque, Picasso included painted or drawn nails in many of his works; here the real object, a simple straight pin, is a tiny, slender focal point.