Las Meninas (Picasso)

Las Meninas (English: The Maids of Honour) is a series of 58 paintings that Pablo Picasso painted in 1957 by performing a comprehensive analysis, reinterpreting and recreating several times Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez. The suite is fully preserved at the Museu Picasso in Barcelona, it is known that he sold the first and second interpretations of the meninas to the American art collector Peggy Guggenheim, owner of the Art of this century gallery. This is a very extensive survey work which consists of 45 versions of the original picture, nine scenes of a dove,^[1] three landscapes and a portrait of Jacqueline.

Picasso himself understood this series as a whole and as such donated it to the museum in Barcelona in May 1968 in memory of Jaime Sabartés who died the same year. Picasso said to Sabartés in 1950:

If someone want to copy Las Meninas, entirely in good faith, for example, upon reaching a certain point and if that one was me, I would say..what if you put them a little more to the right or left? I'll try to do it my way, forgetting about Velázquez. The test would surely bring me to modify or change the light because of having changed the position of a character. So, little by little, that would be a detestable Meninas for a traditional painter, but would be my Meninas.

The suite[]

Exhibits[]

Tate Gallery

Stedelijk Museum

Picasso: Challenging the past exhibit in London

The Suite has been shown in the following exhibitions:

• 1959 - Les Menines, Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris.
• 1960 - Picasso, Tate Gallery, London.
• 1964 - Pablo Picasso. Exhibition Japan 1964, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan.
• 1964 - Pablo Picasso. Exhibition Japan 1964, National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan.
• 1964 - Pablo Picasso. Exhibition Japan 1964, Nagoya City Art Museum, Japan.
• 1966 - 1967 - Hommage à Pablo Picasso, Grand Palais, Paris.
• 1967 - Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
• 1968 - Museu Picasso, Barcelona.
• 2008 - Forgetting Velázquez: Between 16 May and 28 September 2008, an exhibition at the Museu Picasso in Barcelona, which explains the influence of Velázquez and Picasso's work in other contemporary artists, having as central to Las Meninas.The exhibition, divided into two sections, we could see one side works of the seventeenth century Spanish painters such as Velázquez, Juan Carreño de Miranda or Juan Bautista del Mazo, and some of the Las Meninas by Picasso next to more contemporary productions, with works by artists such as Francisco Goya, Michael Craig-Martin, Josep Maria Sert, Richard Hamilton or Thomas Struth, among others. It was curated by Gertje Utley and Malén Gual.

However, there are several works from the Suite that have been part of other exhibitions. Here you will find the most relevant:

• 1980 - Picasso: A Retrospective, MoMA, New York.
• 1981 - Picasso 1881-1973. Exposición Antológica, , Madrid.
• 1985 - La peinture après 1940. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
• 1988 - Picasso in the Soviet Union. Pushkin Museum, Moscow
• 2006 - Picasso. Tradición y vanguardia. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid
• 2008 - Picasso et les Maîtres. Grand Palais, Paris
• 2009 - Picasso: Challenging the past. National Gallery of London
• 2010 - Picasso: Peace and Freedom. Tate Liverpool

Other versions[]

The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit by John Singer Sargent.

Meninas by Manolo Valdés.

Whistler in his studio by James Abbott McNeill Whistler.

Velázquez's Las Meninas has served as inspiration not only to Picasso. The first follower of Velázquez was certainly his son-in-law Juan Bautista del Mazo, appointed court painter to Philip IV of Spain in 1661. In the portrait of the Infanta Margarita of Spain, 1666, in the backplane, one can see the placement of Charles II and the dwarf Mari Bárbola in a scene similar to Las Meninas by Velázquez.^[3] Here is a list of works by artists who also have versioned Las Meninas throughout art history.

• Claudio Bravo, La vista
• , Meninas squatting (1982), private collection
• William Merritt Chase, A Friendly Call (1895), National Gallery of Art
• , Las Meninas (1978), Centre Georges Pompidou
• , Prince Aquiles, after Velázquez (2010)
• , El recinte (1971) private collection
• Salvador Dalí, Velázquez pintant la infanta Margarida amb les llums i les ombres de la seva pròpia glòria (1958), Salvador Dalí Museum
• Edgar Degas, Variation on Velázquez's Las Meninas (1857), Neue Pinakothek
• , In-Fanta de llimona II (1992), Iria Souto Catoira collection
• Luca Giordano, Hommage to Velázquez, National Gallery of London
• Alberto Gironella, Cambra Oscura (1975), private collection
• Francisco de Goya, Las Meninas (1780–85) Biblioteca Nacional de España
• Richard Hamilton, Interior II (1964) Tate
• Richard Hamilton, Las Meninas of Picasso (1973) Tate
• Yasumasa Morimura, Daughter of Art History (Princess A), private collection
• Vik Muniz, Las Meninas by Velázquez (the chocolate paintings)(2002)
• Jorge Oteiza, Hommage to Las Meninas (1958),
• Giulio Paolini, Contemplator Enim VI (fuori l'autore) (1991)
• Antonio Saura, Infanta i Saba (1962)
• Josep Maria Sert, Figurí per a Las Meninas (1916), Fundación Juan March
• , Las Meninas Núm. IX (1981-1983)
• John Singer Sargent, The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit (1882), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
• Thomas Struth, Museo del Prado 6 (2005), private collection
• Franz von Stuck, Family group (1909), Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
• Eve Sussman, 89 segons at the Alcázar (2004), private collection
• Manolo Valdés, Reina Marianna (1989), private collection
• Jeff Wall, Picture for Women (1979), Centre Georges Pompidou
• James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Whistler in his studio (1865)
• Joel-Peter Witkin, Las Meninas. New Mexico (1987)

References[]

Bibliography[]

• (1968). Las Meninas : catálogo. Barcelona: Ajuntament de Barcelona. Museu Picasso.
• Brown, Jonathan (1986). Velázquez. Pintor y cortesano. New Haven: Alianza Editorial.
• Brown, Jonathan; (ed.) (1999). Picasso y la Tradición española. Hondarribia: Nerea. p. 127. ISBN 84-89569-27-4.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
• Calvo Serraller, Francisco; Giménez, Carmen (2006). Picasso, tradición y vanguardia. 38. Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado / Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. pp. 300–317, 302, 306.
• (1986). Una lectura de Les Menines de Picasso. Barcelona: Serra d'Or nºVIII.
• Galassi, Susan Grace (1996). Picasso's variations on the Masters : confrontations with the past. New York: Harry N. Abrams. p. fig. 6-4, p. 155.
• Gual, Malén (7 July 2009). El com i el perquè de la nova presentació de Las Meninas. Barcelona.
• Julián, Inmaculada (1992). "Temas y modelos en la obra de Picasso". In Universitat de Barcelona. Departament d'Art (ed.). D'Art 1992 Art, Bellessa, Coneixement. D'Art. Barcelona: Publicacions Universitat de Barcelona. ISSN 0211-0768.
• Leiris, Michel (1959). Picasso, Les Menines 1957 (in French). París: Galerie Louise Leiris.
• Leymarie, Jean (1966). Hommage à Pablo Picasso : peintures. Grand Palais, París: Réunion des Musées Nationaux.
• Museu Picasso, catàleg de pintura i dibuix. Barcelona: Ajuntament de Barcelona. 1984. pp. 23, 696–719.
• Oblidant Velázquez. Las Meninas. Barcelona: Museu Picasso, Ajuntament de Barcelona. 2008. ISBN 978-84-9850-090-5.
• Otras Meninas. Barcelona: Siruela. 1995. ISBN 978-84-7844-221-8.
• Palau i Fabre, Josep (1981). El secret de Les Menines de Picasso. Barcelona: Polígrafa. p. fig. 1, p. 20. ISBN 84-343-0342-6.
• Penrose, Roland (1960). Picasso [at Tate Gallery] : the Arts Council of Great Britain 1960. Londres: Lund Humphries. p. núm. 202, p. 59, fig. 49a.
• (2001). Picasso's Las Meninas. Barcelona: Meteora. ISBN 978-84-95623-15-7.
• Rubin, William, ed. (1980). Pablo Picasso : a retrospective. New York: Museum of Modern Art. p. 430.
• Sabartés, Jaume (1959). Picasso, Las Meninas y la vida. Barcelona: . p. fig. 1, p. 25.
• Trione, Debra J. (1994). "Las Meninas" again in 1957 : Picasso's variations on a theme [tesi doctoral], Ann Arbor. Umi Research Press.
• Walther, Ingo F. (1992). "Por Ejemplo: Las Meninas 1957". Pablo Picasso 1881-1973, tomo II (in Spanish). Köln: Bebedikt Yaschen. ISBN 3-8228-0672-2.
• Zervos, Christian (1996). Pablo Picasso : vol. 17, oeuvres de 1956 à 1957. París: Cahiers d’Art. p. núm. 351, p. 11.

External links[]

• Las Meninas commented at Museu Picasso website