The Poet (Le poète)

The Poet was painted during the summer of 1911, when Pablo Picasso was working with Georges Braque in the French Pyrenees town of Céret. Here, the human form has been visually dissected and reconstructed as an architecture of rectilinear and curvilinear elements. The man (poet) is displayed as a central pyramidal figure; his chin, pipe, and neck fused, his torso, elbows, and chair arms thin. Picasso presents multiple views of each object and body part as if he had moved around them individually, and synthesizes them into a single compound image. The fragmentation of the work of art encourages viewers to interpret the painting as abstract rather than as a representational form.
SKU: 6105
Creator: Pablo Picasso
Date: August 1911
Original Medium: oil on fine linen
Original Size: 51 5/8 x 35 1/4 in.
Location: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
© Succession Picasso 2011