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Painter and sculptor, 1881 to 1973

Pablo Picasso

For most of the twentieth century the best place in the world to see Picasso was not Paris or Barcelona. It was West 53rd Street. It may still be.

Born
1881, Málaga, Spain
Died
1973, Mougins, France
Movement
Cubism
In New York
6 works in 3 museums

Where to see Pablo Picasso in New York

Each work with the museum it hangs in. Museums move and lend their works, so check before a special journey.

The Museum of Modern Art3 works

  1. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

    1907

    Five nude women in a brothel, their bodies cut into flat angular planes and two of their faces like African masks, staring out of a canvas nearly two and a half metres square. His friends were appalled, and he kept it rolled up for years.

  2. Three Musicians

    1921

    A Pierrot, a Harlequin and a monk, playing in a shallow brown room, put together from flat shapes like cut paper. It is Cubism at its largest and most cheerful.

  3. Girl before a Mirror

    1932

    His young companion Marie-Thérèse Walter reaches towards her reflection, which is darker and older than she is, in colours like stained glass.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum2 works

  1. Le Moulin de la Galette

    1900

    A crowded dance hall in Montmartre by gaslight, painted within weeks of his arrival in Paris. It is in the Thannhauser Collection.

  2. Woman Ironing

    1904

    A gaunt laundress presses down on her iron with her whole weight, in the greys and blues of his poorest years.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art1 work

  1. Gertrude Stein

    1905 to 1906

    The American writer leans forward in a brown coat, her face painted last, from memory, like a mask. When someone said it did not look like her, Picasso is said to have answered that it would.

The life of Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso was born in Málaga in 1881 and settled in Paris in 1904. He never set foot in the United States. His pictures did: the director of the Museum of Modern Art, Alfred Barr, built the museum's account of modern art around him, and gave him exhibition after exhibition from 1939 onwards.

The museum holds work from every part of his long life. The Metropolitan has the early portrait of Gertrude Stein, for which she sat some ninety times, and the Guggenheim's Thannhauser Collection has Le Moulin de la Galette, painted in his first weeks in Paris at nineteen. His works are still under copyright and are not pictured here.

What to know

  • MoMA bought Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in 1939
  • Guernica hung at MoMA from 1939 to 1981, before it went to Spain
  • Gertrude Stein left her portrait to the Met: it was the museum's first Picasso
Born
25 October 1881, Málaga, Spain
Died
8 April 1973, Mougins, France

Pablo Picasso: common questions

Where can you see Pablo Picasso in New York?
At the Museum of Modern Art: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Three Musicians and Girl before a Mirror. At the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum: Le Moulin de la Galette and Woman Ironing. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Gertrude Stein. Museums move and lend their works, so check before a special journey.
What is Pablo Picasso's most famous work in New York?
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, of 1907, at the Museum of Modern Art. Five nude women in a brothel, their bodies cut into flat angular planes and two of their faces like African masks, staring out of a canvas nearly two and a half metres square. His friends were appalled, and he kept it rolled up for years.
When and where was Pablo Picasso born?
On 25 October 1881, at Málaga, Spain. Pablo Picasso died on 8 April 1973, at Mougins, France, aged about 92.
What is Pablo Picasso known for?
MoMA bought Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in 1939. Guernica hung at MoMA from 1939 to 1981, before it went to Spain. Gertrude Stein left her portrait to the Met: it was the museum's first Picasso. Pablo Picasso was a Spanish painter and sculptor, of Cubism.

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