Picasso: Guitars 1912-1914

Pablo Picassos modest yet revolutionary cardboard and sheet metal Guitar sculptures (1912 and 1914, respectively) bracket an incandescent period of structural, spatial and material experimentation for the artist. This essay incorporates photographs, correspondence, archival records and accounts, providing insights into Picassos practice.

Pablo Picasso’s modest yet revolutionary cardboard and sheet metal Guitar sculptures (1912 and 1914, respectively) bracket an incandescent period of structural, spatial and material experimentation for the artist. In October 1912, while in what he described as ‘the process of imagining a guitar’, Picasso embraced the radical techniques of collage, construction, and mixedmedia painting, frequently combining traditional artists’ supplies – oil paint, charcoal, pastel, ink – with what were then unconventional materials, including cardboard, newspaper, wallpaper, sheet music and sand. Published in conjunction with an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, this volume situates Picasso’s Guitars within the constellation of objects that surrounded them in his studio, affording a fresh understanding of the unique material and historical qualities of the artist’s work in the years immediately prior toWorldWar I. An essay by Anne Umland incorporates photographs, correspondence, archival records and eyewitness accounts, providing insights into Picasso’s practice and the remarkable institutional history behind the acquisition of the two Guitar sculptures, both gifts to MoMA from the artist.