Information on
Pablo Picasso
Spanish, 1881–1973
Guitar and Wine Glass, 1912
Collage and charcoal, 18 7/8 x 14 3/4 in.
Bequest of Marion Koogler McNay
1950.12
Subject Matter
The collage includes visual elements from Parisian cafe life:
• a wine glass drawn with charcoal, fragmented and
reformed to give the viewer several points of view:
the top rim, the side profile, the bottom foot, the
stem from the side, and so on
• a guitar formed by assembling a piece of brown
paper painted to look like wood grain, a blue paper,
and a white circle to suggest the hole and strings
• a black curved shape suggesting a dish or round
table top
• a scrap of sheet music
• a piece of the newspaper Le Journal with the beginning of a headline that translates “The battle is on . . .”
• a background of tan patterned wallpaper
The collage contains both visual and verbal puns. Visually: the wine glass with a stem that looks like
a cartoon face; the paper painted to look like wood. Verbally: JOU, a word fragment that, in French,
conjures up the root of the verb JOUER, to play; and the headline with its possible reference to the
battle in art in France at this time (see About the Artist).
About the Artist
The dominant personality in the visual arts during the 20th century, Pablo Picasso was born in Spain,
the son of a drawing master. Before he was even 14, his drawings had the qualities of a master. At 19
(the age when he painted the McNay’s Woman with a Plumed Hat), he visited Paris and then alternated
between Paris and Barcelona until 1904. In Paris he was influenced by the drawings of Toulouse-Lautrec. From 1901 to 1904, his paintings were dominated by cool blue tones, with subjects drawn from poverty
and social outcasts. These works are called his Blue Period. From 1905 to 1907, he painted less austere
subjects in pinks and grays during his Rose Period. During the years from 1907 to 1909 he pursued an
independent path, influenced by his studies of abstract forms in tribal sculpture from Africa, Oceania,
and Iberia, and the structural relationships in Cézanne’s paintings. These explorations culminated in
the painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (Museum of Modern Art, New York City), which is considered
a landmark work in the development of Cubist painting. Jointly pioneered by Picasso and Georges
Braque, Cubism abandoned the 500 year old system of perspective and other conventions for depicting
the visual world. Cubism developed a new artistic language based on fragmentation, disintegration,
and reforming the visual world.
In its first phases, around 1909, Picasso and Braque began collaborating in a style that became known
as Analytical Cubism, in which colors are muted and forms disintegrate throughout the picture. The
drawing of the glass in the McNay’s collage is done in the Analytical Cubist style. By 1912, Picasso and
Braque began to enrich the Cubist vocabulary by incorporating real objects such as scraps of newspaper
into their pictures, often deliberately giving them a dual function both as what they were and as they
contributed to the symbolism of the image. Vibrant color also appears in this phase (1912–14) called
Synthetic Cubism. The guitar in the McNay’s collage exemplifies Synthetic Cubism. Guitar and a Wine
Glass played a pivotal role in the evolution of Cubism, since it was one of Picasso’s first collages.
theMcNay
Pablo Picasso
Guitar and Wine Glass, 1912
About the Artist continued
Picasso’s later works vary in style, with a brief period of monumental classical nudes and an association
with Surrealism in the 1920s. His emotional involvement with the Spanish civil war led him to create
works depicting the brutality of war, as well as other images of political protest. After World War II, he
moved to the south of France, where he remained extremely active, producing work in almost every
artistic medium, including paintings, etchings, sculpture, ceramics, linocuts, and murals. Picasso died in
France in 1973.
Quote from the Artist
The fact that for a long time Cubism has not been understood and that even today there are people
who cannot see anything in it, means nothing. I do not read English, an English book is a blank
book to me. This does not mean that the English language does not exist, and why should I blame
anybody but myself if I cannot understand what I know nothing about?
From an interview by Marius de Zayas. A translation approved by Picasso published as “Picasso Speaks,” The Arts (New York), May 1923.
Strategies for Tours
Primary Grades (ages 6–8): How many geometric shapes can you find? [Parallelogram, octagon,
circle, quadrangle, rectangles, arcs, oval.] Can you see how the artist formed a guitar from
combining different shapes? Is this a portrait, still life, or landscape?
Upper Elementary (ages 9–11): Describe the different views of the wine glass shown here. Why
would an artist choose to draw a wine glass this way? [Using the drawing of the wine glass,
explain how Cubists looked at an object or person from all different angles and tried to include
several views.]
Middle School/High School (ages 12–18): [Before you look at this work, tell students you are about to
look at a picture of a guitar and wine glass. Ask them to describe the kinds of lines, shapes, and
colors the artist might use in such a picture. When you are looking at the picture, see how well
their descriptions fit Picasso’s collage. Did he do some things that surprised them? Are there
some things that match their descriptions?]
Sources Worth Consulting
Daix, Pierre. Picasso: Life and Art. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1987.
Fitzgerland, Michael. Picasso: The Artist’s Studio. London: Yale University Press, 2001.
Léal, Brigitte; Piot, Christine; and Bernadal, Marie-Laure. The Ultimate Picasso. New York: Harry N.
Abrams, Inc., 2000.
Richardson, John. A Life of Picasso. New York: Random House, 1991.
Rubin, William, ed. Pablo Picasso: A Retrospective. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1980.
Prepared by Rose M. Glennon
theMcNay
Date 9/30/93