1955, Pablo Picasso, Women of Algiers, Version "I" -- Norton Simon Museum (Pasadena)
From the museum label: This remarkable re-creation of the Women of Algiers, an iconic harem scene by the French Romanticist Eugène Delacroix, is one of fifteen paintings and over a hundred works on paper of this subject that Picasso made in a concentrated burst of activity in late 1954 and early 1955. Although the Spanish artist had long admired Delacroix's masterpiece, the impetus to paint an odalisque was likely inspired by the death of Matisse that November. Speaking of his longtime friend and artistic rival, Picasso explained, "When Matisse died he left me his odalisques as a legacy, and this is my idea of the Orient, though I have never been there."
1955, Pablo Picasso, Women of Algiers, Version "I" -- Norton Simon Museum (Pasadena)
From the museum label: This remarkable re-creation of the Women of Algiers, an iconic harem scene by the French Romanticist Eugène Delacroix, is one of fifteen paintings and over a hundred works on paper of this subject that Picasso made in a concentrated burst of activity in late 1954 and early 1955. Although the Spanish artist had long admired Delacroix's masterpiece, the impetus to paint an odalisque was likely inspired by the death of Matisse that November. Speaking of his longtime friend and artistic rival, Picasso explained, "When Matisse died he left me his odalisques as a legacy, and this is my idea of the Orient, though I have never been there."