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12 Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe

During the 1950s, Picasso executed series of variations on major works from the history of Western art. After Eugène Delacroix’s ★Women of Algiers in their Apartment★ and Diego Vélazquez’s ★Las Meninas★, he embarked on a reinterpretation of Édouard Manet’s masterpiece, ★Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (The Luncheon on the Grass)★, which deconstructs and brings together in the same scene the main genres of classical painting—the ★plein air★ landscape, the conversation and the still life. Like Manet and Vélazquez, Picasso explored the device of the relationship between the artist and his model, as well as the place of the viewer. Although he sketched out a project in 1954, it was chiefly between the summer of 1959 and 1962 that he dedicated himself fully to this process of appropriation and reinterpretation. Thanks to its scope, this series of works occupies a unique place in the artist’s confrontation with the ‘masters’, Picasso producing 27 paintings, around 140 drawings, as well as 5 linocuts and several sculptures on this subject.