Explore the Influences of this artwork, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.
Picasso created hundreds of sketches and studies in preparation for the final work. He long acknowledged the importance of Spanish art and Iberian sculpture as influences on the painting. The work is believed by critics to be influenced by African tribal masks and the art of Oceania, although Picasso denied the connection; many art historians remain skeptical about his denials. Picasso spent an October 1906 evening closely studying a Teke figure from Congo then owned by Matisse. It was later that night that Picasso's first studies for what would become Les Demoiselles d’Avignon were created. Several experts maintain that, at the very least, Picasso visited the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro (known later as the Musée de l'Homme) in the spring of 1907 where he saw and sought inspiration from African and other arts shortly before completing Les Demoiselles. He had come to this museum originally to study plaster casts of medieval sculptures, then also considered examples of "primitive" art.
Teke Musée de l'Homme Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro Iberian Spanish art fr Picasso October African Iberian sculpture African tribal masks tribal masks art of Oceania