Picasso's Demoiselles, the untold origins of a modern masterpiece
By: Suzanne Preston Blier
Contributors: Duke University Press
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 2019
Language: eng
Number of pages: 432
ISBN-13: 9781478000051; 9781478000198
Subjects: Women in art; ART; Prostitution in art; Demoiselles d'Avignon (Picasso, Pablo); Criticism and interpretation; Cubism; General
Description: In 'Picasso's Demoiselles', eminent art historian Suzanne Preston Blier uncovers the previously unknown history of Pablo Picasso's 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon', one of the twentieth century's most important, celebrated, and studied paintings. Drawing on her expertise in African art and newly discovered sources, Blier reads the painting not as a simple bordello scene but as Picasso's interpretation of the diversity of representations of women from around the world that he encountered in photographs and sculptures. These representations are central to understanding the painting's creation and help identify the demoiselles as global figures, mothers, grandmothers, lovers, and sisters, as well as part of the colonial world Picasso inhabited. Simply put, Blier fundamentally transforms what we know about this revolutionary and iconic work.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 365-414) and index.
Table of contents: title: Setting, sources, titles, and time; title: The making of a painting; title: Art in the flesh; title: The sorcerer's apprentice; title: L'oiseau du Bénin; title: The global brothel; title: Le bordel philosophique.