A brief history of the influence of African masks on Picasso's Cubist paintings PDF file

1. Picasso and Africa

2. Picasso and Matisse
were friends. One
day Matisse bought
an African Mask and
showed it to Picasso.
They both were
amazed by the way
the mask depicted the
face.

3. Picasso went to
the museum in
Paris and
looked at all
the African
Masks on
display there.

4. Picasso went to
the museum in
Paris and
looked at all
the African
Masks on
display there.

5. Soon Picasso was
painting people
who looked like
they were
wearing African
masks.
Head of Man, 1907

6. How are these the same?
How are they different?
What parts of the face are exaggerated?
Head of a
Woman,
1907

7. He even painted his
good friend
Gertrude like a
mask!
Portrait of Gertrude Stein, 1906
I think he made
my nose too
big!

8. Then Picasso
thought if he
exaggerated the
faces, why not
show parts of the
figure from all
different sides at
once?
Eyes
Mouth

9. Soon Picasso had so
many sides at
once, that it was
getting hard to tell
what the painting
originally was
about.
Portrait of Ambroise Vollard. 1910

10. Really hard!
Picasso called this
way of
breaking his
painting into
little cubes:
Cubism
Portrait of Kahnweiler. 1910