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Pablo Picasso. Three Musicians. Fontainebleau, summer 1921 6

Oil on canvas, 6' 7" x 7' 3 3/4" (200.7 x 222.9 cm). Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund. © 2024 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Narrator: Have you come to hear the Three Musicians? One plays the recorder, or maybe a clarinet. One plays the guitar. And one sings from a sheet of music.

They play on this little brown stage in this little dark room, wearing wild costumes and masks. The man in the middle has a clown suit covered with gold and orange diamonds. Pablo Picasso, the artist who made this picture, often painted himself as a kind of clown. Next to him, on the right, is a man in a black robe and a pointy hood. He has a stringy beard like a droopy mop. On the other side is a person with a tiny, black mustache—see it? His blue and white outfit has really pointy shoulders!

You know, these guys almost look like they’re pasted together from pieces of cut out paper – like a collage! With those big, blocky bodies and teeny hands like mouse paws, they can barely hold their instruments. But they can make any kind of music that you can imagine! What do you think it sounds like?

Wait! There’s a fourth member of the band who is mostly hidden. Can you find him?

He’s the dog lying under the table! His tail is sticking up between the guitar–player’s legs. Now, keep looking to the left, under the white pants. See the dog’s hairy body, his paws and his claws?

This pooch should be as quiet as his shadow on the back wall, behind the musician in white. After all, he is in a museum. But dogs will be dogs!