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The Artist's Sister Lola

1899-1900

Pablo Picasso

(Spanish, 1881-1973)

Spain, 20th century

Oil on canvas

Framed: 62.5 x 54 x 8 cm (24 5/8 x 21 1/4 x 3 1/8 in.); Unframed: 46.7 x 37.5 cm (18 3/8 x 14 3/4 in.)

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. David S. Ingalls 1966.377

Location

not on view

Description

Picasso painted this portrait of his sister when he was about 18 years old and just discovering avant-garde art through his association with the modernista artists of the Els 4 Gats (Four Cats) café in Barcelona. The evocative colors and melting forms suggest the influence of El Greco, a painter abhorred by academics but admired by Spanish modernists. Lola's mantilla may allude to the family's Andalusian roots in southern Spain.

Artist biography

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Ruiz Picasso (1881-1973), the most prolific and influential artist of the 20th century, shifted the emphasis of art from its traditional concern with beauty toward radical innovation. The son of an art teacher, Picasso demonstrated remarkable talents as a child and entered the royal art academy in Madrid at age sixteen. Less than a year later, he abandoned his studies and soon joined several avant-garde artist and anarchist groups in Barcelona and Paris. After passing through a succession of stylistic periods, most notably the Blue (1901-1904) and Rose (1904-1906) Periods, he collaborated with Georges Braque (1882-1963) in 1908 to invent Cubism, a revolutionary method of restructuring pictorial space. Picasso remained active until his death in 1973. Although his art still appears radical, many of his works are over one hundred years old. Cubism and Its Influence Cubism, perhaps the most important development in 20th-century art, was invented around 1908 by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) and Georges Braque (1882-1963). The most revolutionary aspect of the style was not its obvious emphasis on geometric form; rather, it was the introduction of a radically new approach to configuring pictorial space. Since the Renaissance, artists had used various methods to create the illusion of distant space receding behind the canvas surface. The Cubists rejected that idea and collapsed space by compressing foreground, middle ground, and background into a continuous web of overlapping, intersecting planes. During the 1910s, other painters and sculptors embraced or adapted Cubism to their own ends. This revolutionary approach inspired a host of related movements and continues to influence the visual language of artists, architects, and designers throughout the world.

Inscriptions

Inscription

Signed lower left: "P. Ruiz Picasso-"; [signed upper left: "Ruiz Picasso"]

Provenance

Antonio Vancells, Barcelona; (Knoedler); Jane Taft Ingalls, Cleveland (1951)

Citations

Vallès, Eduard. Picasso: obra catalana. Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2015. Reproduced: p. 34-[35]

Exhibition history

Washington DC, The National Gallery of Art; Museum of Fine Arts Boston, "Picasso: The Early Years, 1892-1906" (March 30, 1997 - January 4, 1998) p. 104, no. 16.

Cleveland Museum of Art (10/15/2006 - 06/03/2007); The Metropolitan Museum of Art (03/04/2007 - 06/03/2007); "Barcelona & Modernity: Picasso, Gaudí. Miró, Dalí", fig. 1 (cat. 3:28), p. 96, repr. 96.

CMA (organizer). Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: June 9 - Sept. 16, 2007; Cleveland Museum of Art, Oct. 21, 2007- January 13, 2008; Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, TN, Feb. 21-June 1, 2008; Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, UT, June 22 - September 21, 2008; and the Detroit Institute of Arts, MI, October 12, 2008 - January 18, 2009: "Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art"

Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer). Tokyo National Museum (1/15/2014 - 2/23/2014) and Kyushu National Museum (7/8/2014 - 8/31/2014): "Admired from Afar: Masterworks of Japanese Painting from the Cleveland Museum of Art", fig. 8, p. 134.

Year in Review: 1967. The Cleveland Museum of Art (November 29-December 31, 1967).

Picasso: The Early Years, 1892-1906. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (March 30-July 27, 1997); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (September 10, 1997-January 4, 1998).

Monet to Dalí: Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Vancouver Art Gallery (June 9-September 16, 2007); The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (October 21, 2007-January 13, 2008); Frist Center for the Visual Arts (February 15-June 1, 2008); Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, UT (June 22-September 21, 2008); The Detroit Institute of Arts (October 12, 2008-January 18, 2009).

Barcelona & Modernity: Picasso, Gaudí, Miró, Dalí (1868-1939). The Cleveland Museum of Art (October 15, 2006-January 7, 2007); The Metropolitan Museum of Art (organizer) (March 4-June 3, 2007).

Admired from Afar: Masterworks of Japanese Painting from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Tokyo National Museum (January 15-February 23, 2014); Kyushu National Museum, Japan (July 8-August 31, 2014).

Cite this page

{{cite web|title=The Artist's Sister Lola|url=https://clevelandart.org/art/1966.377|author=Pablo Picasso|year=1899-1900|access-date=22 October 2019|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

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The Artist's Sister Lola

The Artist's Sister Lola

Pablo Picasso

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Pablo Picasso

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