Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is a monumental masterpiece by Pablo Picasso that fundamentally altered the course of Western art. Completed in 1907, the painting depicts five nude women from a brothel on Barcelona’s Carrer d’Avinyó. By shattering traditional perspective and incorporating the raw power of African masks and Iberian sculpture, Picasso birthed Proto-Cubism. Its aggressive, angular forms and confrontational gazes challenged contemporary standards of beauty and morality, marking a radical break from the Renaissance tradition and establishing the foundations of the modernist revolution.
Pablo Picasso (1907–1924); Jacques Doucet, Paris (1924–1929); Estate of Jacques Doucet (1929–1937); Jacques Seligmann & Co., New York (1937); MoMA (1939–Present)
