Table of Contents

Preface  ix
Introduction  1
1. Setting, Sources, Titles, and Time  19
2. The Making of a Painting  52
3. Art in the Flesh  81
4. The Sorcerer's Apprentice  111
5. L'Oiseau du Bénin  152
6. The Global Brothel  185
7. Le Bordel Philosophique  222
Conclusions. The Creative Nexus  264
Acknowledgments  297
Sketchbooks: New Dating  300
Chronology  305
List of Illustrations  312
Notes  333
References  365
Index  415

About the Author

Suzanne Preston Blier is Allen Whitehill Clowes Professor of Fine Arts and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University and the author and editor of numerous books, including Art and Risk in Ancient Yoruba: Ife History, Power, and Identity c. 1300.

Reviews

"Blier uses a host of techniques including formal analysis, textual analysis, and broader global image culture to dig deep into this one painting. Most exciting is when she points out obvious but overlooked information in widely known documentation, including period photographs of Demoiselles in process that show how Picasso developed the composition. Ultimately, Blier offers a reading thoroughly of our time—one in which women are empowered and time and space compressed."
*Booklist*

"Blier offers a wide-ranging account of the genesis, sources, and context for Picasso’s influential masterpiece. In both cases it is especially timely and meaningful to have women shaping the conversation. . . . Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals."
*Choice*

"The book, which features hundreds of illustrations . . . is full of a vast and intriguing array of highways and forays into every possible connection that might suggest itself to construct this argument. As a Black feminist, I found most persuasive Blier’s proposition to table the idea of Les demoiselles as a brothel scene and see it, rather, as a reference to the turn-of-the-century fascination with the portrayal of racial types."
*Artforum*

“Every age has had its own interpretation of the Demoiselles d’Avignon and with it, its own narrative of Modernism.... Blier's interpretation is doubly interesting, directed as it is at cultural and gender identities and is, without doubt, the one which corresponds ... to our present.”
*African Studies Quarterly*

“What makes Blier’s book truly remarkable is not only its attention to the details surrounding Picasso’s life and work in the years when he painted Les Demoiselles but also her forensic approach to the subject.”
*Art Journal*

“Picasso’s Demoiselles is ... a lighthearted, even playful, book.... Blier is an extraordinary writer; her scholarly production is legendary, and her publications have shaped the field of African studies.”
*Art Journal*