Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon between Consecration and Contestation: Notes on Modernist Criticism and the Contributions of Feminism and Post-Colonialism to Interpretations of the Painting

The article follows a portion of the vast critical heritage of Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) focusing on the convergences and conflicts between part of the most canonical literature and certain interpretations that, from the 1970s onwards, turned to this oeuvre by considering it as a privileged place in the revision of modernists criteria. It thus discusses the successive denounces raised by feminist art critics, whom most often identified Les Demoiselles with the ideological assumptions in the genesis of modernism. Finally, in the light of the bibliographical discussion and considering the recent exhibition of documents hitherto unpublished, the article proposes a brief analytical incursion, in order to underline the paths not yet explored in the interpretation of this painting.

Picasso; Les Demoiselles d’Avignon; Feminism; Post-Colonialism