Picasso: Guitars 1912-1914

February 8, 1971 was a historic date for MOMA: it was the day when Picasso decided to part with one of his beloved scuptures and offer it outright to the museum (after some initial coaxing by Swiss dealer and friend Ernst Beyeler and museum director William Rubin...). And it was not any sculpture: it was a sheet metal construction entitled "Guitar", from 1914, one of the landmarks of cubism.That piece forms the centerpiece of the current wonderful show at the Museum of Modern Art, which focuses on Picasso's Guitars series spanning the years 1912 to 1914. This book, the catalog for the show, starts with a short historical essay on the making and significance of those works, as well as a technical analysis on the various media used by the artist for these "assemblages" (cardboard, metal, but also wood, paintings and drawings).Then come the colorplates of the 73 works in the exhibition, sometimes accompanied by black-and-white photographs of Picasso's workshop at the time. Those illustrations are good, but in my opinion, the three-dimensional pieces should have been photographed from various angles and there should have been some magnified details of them. For a viewer like myself, who will not be able to see the show in person, I think this is a regrettable lack of documentation. Still, it is an important book on a seldom-studied body of works which are central to XXth-century art.

What a fine critical mind Anne Umland has. If you add this paper book to its complementary but quite different E-book companion (also published by MoMA), you get a lot of the best thinking about these ever-fascinating works.

Near perfect condition. Love it. Would like to build cardboard guitar. This will help. Picasso mentioned plans. Ever make them available?

Well written with nice photography of the art.

Great artspo for homeschooling - recommend!

The book arrived quickly - a birthday gift for a friend. They thought it was fantastic.

Fab

not much text in it but the pictures are awsome .. i saw some of these guitar in a museum ....and wow ...what a genuis he was