Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973)

This large-format painting presents a monumental, almost monstrous image of two dark, archaic-looking women. As before in te Demoiselles d'Avignon of 1907, we see Picasso's leaning towards magical and mysterious things. This painting magnificently sets the tone for a whole series of neo-Classical female nudes. The sharp-edged, angular forms of Cubism are now seen in conjunction with mightily rounded, biomorphic deformations. After the stylistic impasse of Cubism, Picasso's formal pluralism emphatically set a new course in the early 1920s. ___