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Picasso: Guitars 1912–1914

Feb 13–Jun 6, 2011

MoMA

Pablo Picasso. Still life with Guitar. Variant state. Paris, assembled before November 15, 1913. Subsequently preserved by the artist. Paperboard, paper, string, and painted wire installed with cut cardboard box, Overall: 30 × 20 1/2 × 7 3/4″ (76.2 × 52.1 × 19.7cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the artist. © 2016 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
  • MoMA, Floor 3

Sometime between October and December 1912, Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) made a guitar. Cobbled together from cardboard, paper, string, and wire, materials that he cut, folded, threaded, and glued, Picasso’s silent instrument resembled no sculpture ever seen before. In 1914 the artist reiterated his fragile papery construction in a more fixed and durable sheet metal form. These two Guitars, both gifts from the artist to MoMA, bracket an incandescent period of material and structural experimentation in Picasso’s work. Picasso: Guitars 1912–1914 explores this breakthrough moment in 20th-century art, and the Guitars’ place within it. Bringing together some 70 closely connected collages, constructions, drawings, mixed-media paintings, and photographs assembled from over 30 public and private collections worldwide, this exhibition offers fresh insight into Picasso’s cross-disciplinary process in the years immediately preceding World War I.

The exhibition is organized by Anne Umland, Curator, with Blair Hartzell, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Painting and Sculpture, The Museum of Modern Art.

  • View an archived version of the exhibition site
  • Explore the artist’s process, materials, and techniques in Picasso: The Making of Cubism 1912–1914 View the interactive e-book

    • The exhibition is sponsored by Hanjin Shipping.

    Major support is provided by The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art and an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

    Additional funding is provided by Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III and by Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte.

    Publications

    • Picasso: Guitars 1912–1914 Anne Umland, 2011 Exhibition catalogue, Hardcover, 112 pages
    • Picasso: The Making of Cubism 1912–1914 Anne Umland and Blair Hartzell, with Scott Gerson, 2014 E-Book, 390 pages

    Artist

    Installation images

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