Notebook No. 26 (Study of Violins and Musical Instruments)

ca. 1913–16

Not on view

Picasso once wrote "je suis le cahier" (I am the notebook), indicating the vital role that his sketchbooks, as sites of experimentation, played in his formation as an artist. This pocket-sized example dates to his Cubist period, when he dismantled conventional perspective and fragmented everyday objects into reductive forms. Its pages contain sketches of various objects, including guitars and violins. Such musical instruments were important for the artist as he developed the visual syntax of Cubism. Incorporating both voids and projections, they provided the optimal subjects for exploring depth, perspective, and the translation of three-dimensional forms into two-dimensional planes. Notebook no. 26, one of 175 that the artist filled throughout his career, affords a window onto Picasso’s invention of Cubism and his treatment of musical instruments and related forms as subjects for exploration, including the drawings shown here from the same period.

Artwork Details

Overview

Provenance

Exhibition History

References

Title: Notebook No. 26 (Study of Violins and Musical Instruments)
Artist: Pablo Picasso (Spanish, Malaga 1881–1973 Mougins, France)
Date: ca. 1913–16
Medium: Ink and graphite on perforated paper sheets bound in a notebook
Dimensions: 3 3/8 × 4 1/2 × 3/8 in. (8.6 × 11.4 × 1 cm)
Each sheet: 3 3/8 × 4 3/8 in. (8.6 × 11.1 cm)
Mount (IM.2020.23 mount): 1 3/8 × 8 1/2 × 3 3/8 in. (3.5 × 21.6 × 8.6 cm)
Classifications: Drawings, Books
Credit Line: Leonard A. Lauder Cubist Collection, Purchase, Leonard A. Lauder Gift, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary, 2020
Object Number: 2020.23
Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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