Picasso's 'Les demoiselles d'Avignon'

Brings together psychological, feminist, historical, and post-colonial perspectives on a significant twentieth-century work.

Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon has long been recognized as one of the most significant paintings of the twentieth century. This volume brings together essays from a variety of methodological and topical perspectives. Yves-Alain Bois finds in the painting the presence of trauma and opens the way to a psychoanalytical exploration. Tamar Garb asks what it could mean to women, focusing on Gertrude Stein as one of the painting's first spectators, while Patricia Leighten uses post-colonial theory to explore its conjunction of prostitution and African themes. Christopher Green asks what the confrontation of the European and the non-European could signify and whether this Picasso work can still be meaningfully linked to the grand narrative of modernist history. Through these various analyses, the contributors explore the power and significance of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, situating the work within twentieth-century art history as a whole and debates over Primitivism, sexuality, and stylistic change.

1. An introduction to Les Demoiselles d'Avignon; 2. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and the exhibition of 1988; 3. Painting as trauma; 4. 'To kill the nineteenth century': sex and spectatorship with Gertrude and Pablo; 5. Colonialism, 'l'Art Negre' and Les Demoiselles d'Avignon; 6. In another frame: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and physical anthropology; 7. 'Naked problems: Sub-African caricatures? Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Africa and Cubism.

Contributors to this volume consider this important twentieth century work from a variety of methodological and topical perspectives, including psychoanalytical, feminist, historical, and post-colonial. The combined analysis suggests the painting's power and significance to art history as a whole and debates over Primitivism, sexuality, and stylistic change.

Long recognized as one of the most significant paintings of the twentieth century, contributors to this volume consider Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon from a variety of methodological and topical perspectives, including psychoanalytical, feminist, historical, and postcolonial. Through these various analyzes, the contributors explore the power and significance of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, situating the work within twentieth century art history and debates over Primitivism, sexuality, and stylistic change.