Bearded Man Playing Guitar

Avignon, summer 1914

Not on view

At the onset of World War I, Picasso went to Avignon where he encountered an old friend, the Basque artist Francisco Iturrino, with whom he had shared his first exhibition in 1901. The sheet, while presenting a cubist studies of a guitar player, shares expressive features with Iturrino, adding an element of realism in this abstracted form. The orange-hued instrument at the center of the composition could be read as a painter’s palette, owing to its curvilinear shape. Picasso may have intended this productive ambiguity as a sly reference his friend’s profession.

Artwork Details

Title: Bearded Man Playing Guitar
Artist: Pablo Picasso (Spanish, Malaga 1881–1973 Mougins, France)
Date: Avignon, summer 1914
Medium: Graphite, watercolor, and opaque watercolor on tan wove paper, mounted to board
Dimensions: 19 1/2 × 15 in. (49.5 × 38.1 cm)
Classification: Drawings
Credit Line: Leonard A. Lauder Cubist Collection, Gift of Leonard A. Lauder, 2016
Object Number: 2016.237.23
Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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