The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry

PABLO PICASSO

that man, and which his home? Did he go alone at dawn to show the purple of his
nights?... Sun of being, Prince and Master! our works are scattered, our tasks
without honor and our grain without harvest: the binder of sheaves awaits, at the
evening’s ebb.—Behold, they are dyed with our blood, these fruits of a stormy fate.

At the gait of a binder of sheaves life goes, without hatred or ransom.

—richard howard

Pablo Picasso 1881–1973

málaga, spain

A

cofounder of Cubism, along with Braque, Picasso was one of the great

geniuses of the twentieth century, experimenting and excelling in vir-

tually every artistic mode. A child prodigy, he was ably abetted in his

early work by his father, an art teacher himself. Picasso frequented cafés in

Barcelona before moving to Paris, where he was influenced by the work of

Manet, Courbet, Toulouse-Lautrec, and, most profoundly, Matisse. For each of

his many lovers, famously including Dora Maar and Françoise Gilot, he modified

his painting style in order to best express his love. Under the impulse of his

friendship with André Breton, he wrote reams of ‘‘automatic poems’’ and Sur-

realist plays, among which the most famous is Le Désir attrapé par la queue.

Among his most renowned paintings are Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) and

Guernica (1937).

Her Great Thighs

Her great thighs
Her breasts
Her hips
Her buttocks
Her arms