Pablo Picasso, The Women of Algiers, version "O"

1955 - Private Collection

Conclusion of Modern Masters after the War: Picasso, 1944-1960, late Braque

with Chris Boïcos

The immediate post-war period witnessed the emergence on both sides of the Atlantic of a new generation of rebellious abstract painters, like Pollock or Dubuffet, who considered pre-war modern art irrelevant to the concerns of a world traumatized by war. Modern art had to reinvent itself by going back to ground zero.

The artists who had made their reputations as far back as the beginning of the century could not renounce their own history and techniques as easily as the new artists. Yet each, in his own way, responded to the era by adapting their style and their themes to the new historical environment. Though considered old in 1944 – Matisse was 75, Picasso and Léger 63, Braque 62 – these established masters nevertheless produced some of their freshest and most vital work at what for all, but Picasso, was the end of their career.

Our conclusion will cover Picasso from the liberation of Paris in 1944 to Braque's last paintings of the late 1950s and early 1960s.