Picasso: A Cubist Commission In Brooklyn

Exhibition at the Metropolitain Museum of Art, New York, 12 September 2023 - 14 January 2024

In 1910, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) embarked on a decorative commission for the Brooklyn residence of the artist, collector and critic Hamilton Easter Field (1873-1922), whom he had met in Paris the previous year. The artist's brief called for up to eleven panels to line the walls of Field's library, forming an enveloping aesthetic whole. The proposed piece offered Picasso his first opportunity to move beyond easel painting and apply his radical Cubist style to decorative painting formats of difficult size and proportion. Working from his studio in France, the artist produced a group of figure compositions and still lifes, but the commission never materialised.

This exhibition catalogue is the first in-depth examination of this commission, offering new insights into a little-known chapter of Picasso's art. Drawing on new research, including letters and archival documents from Picasso and Field, this book shows how the unfulfilled commission pushed Picasso to move beyond easel painting and adapt Cubist forms to an immersive aesthetic experience.