Pablo Picasso

Spanish, 1881-1973

Harlequin (Project for a Monument)

© Succession Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

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© Succession Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

© Succession Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

Harlequin (Project for a Monument), 1935

Artwork Details

Materials

oil on canvas

Measurements

support: 24 1/4 x 19 3/4 inches (61.59 x 50.16 cm); framed: 33 3/4 x 29 3/8 x 1 5/8 inches (85.72 x 74.61 x 4.13 cm)

Collection Buffalo AKG Art Museum

Credit

Room of Contemporary Art Fund, 1941

Accession ID

RCA1941:23

During the late 1920s Pablo Picasso became interested in designing imaginary “monuments” in which inventive and surrealistic figures are envisioned as gigantic sculptures. Here he revisits the Harlequin as a lighthearted figure, his cap perched jauntily on his head. Lemon yellow, violet, orange-red, and green and muted tones of blue, rose, and chocolate brown are framed in heavy black lines and set against a background of silvery white. “Cubism,” said Picasso, is “an art dealing primarily with forms, and when a form is realized it is there to live its own life. A mineral substance, having geometric formation, is not made to transitory purposes, it is to remain what it is and will always have its own form.”

Label from Picasso: The Artist and His Models, November 5, 2016–February 19, 2017

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