Picasso in Fontainebleau

Picasso in Fontainebleau

Edited by Anne Umland with Francesca Ferrari and Alexandra Morrison. Contributions by Cindy Albertson, Anny Aviram, Lee Ann Daffner, Michael Duffy, Emilie Faust, Starr Figura, Erika Mosier, Rachel Mustalish.

Exploring Picasso's seemingly opposite styles and artistic processes during a three-month summer vacation

In the summer of 1921, on the west wall of his improvised garage studio in Fontainebleau, France, Pablo Picasso painted two large-scale and astonishingly different-looking pictures side by side. On the left hung his classicizing Three Women at the Spring, long associated with the "return to order" in the aftermath of World War I. To its right, Picasso worked on one of two versions of Three Musicians, often described as the culmination of his prewar Cubist style. The visual dissonance of this pairing still has the ability to shock. Yet, a close look at Picasso's...

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