Les Demoiselles d’Avignon: A Painting by Pablo Picasso

This is generally regarded as the foundation work of Cubism

Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon, by the Spanish painter and sculptor Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), is generally regarded as a cornerstone in the history of art and the seminal work of Cubism.

The oil on canvas painting, which measures 8 feet by 7 ft 8 ins (244 x 235 cm), dates from 1907 and was first exhibited at Bateau-Lavoir, a celebrated avant-garde studio in Paris. It was not shown in public until 1916. It can now be seen at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

The title was given to the painting by Andre Salmon, a contemporary art critic, and refers to “Avignon” as a street in Barcelona that was the location of a well-known brothel.

The painting is of five prostitutes (the “demoiselles”), although Picasso originally intended to include two male figures, namely a sailor and a medical student holding a skull. The violently jagged bodies of the five women face the viewer head-on, two of them pushing aside curtains and the others in erotic poses.

The painting is remarkable for several reasons. For example, Picasso flouts two of the conventions by which a painter creates an illusion of reality, namely shading to convey mass and perspective to give space. Where…