Guitar on a Table

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Guitar on a Table exemplifies the Cubist style that Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque had pioneered in the years just before 1912. The key idea was to capture what it is like to know or see something through time. The faceting visible in these paintings is meant to evoke the experience of having seen a thing at multiple vantage points at different moments. Cubism utilizes shifting perspectives of the same subject as way to expand the three dimensions of space (height, width, and depth) with a fourth dimension that takes duration into account.

In 1912, both Picasso and Braque began experimenting with collage, often combining charcoal or pencil drawing with elements such as newsprint or patterned paper. While Guitar on a Table is entirely painted, Picasso paints a faux–wood grain pattern that imitates the effect of industrially produced paper, a material that would frequently appear in both his and Braque’s collages of this period.

From the 2019 exhibition Cubism and Its Aftershocks, curated by John R. Stomberg Ph.D, Virginia Rice Kelsey 1961s Director

Course History

ENGL 72, Woolfenstein, Barbara Will, Fall 2012

FILM 47, Cut & Paste Cinema, Jodie Mack, Winter 2012

ARTH 16.2, Picasso: The Vollard Suite, Michael R. Taylor, Fall 2013

THEA 90, Contemporary Practices in U.S. Theater, Laurie Cherba Kohn, Fall 2013

WRIT 5, The Waste Land, Before and After, Melissa Zeiger, Fall 2013

PHIL 23, Philosophy of Art, John Kulvicki, Winter 2014

SART 25, Painting I, Enrico Riley, Fall 2014

WRIT 5, On Poor Taste, William Boyer, Winter 2015

SART 25, Painting I, Enrico Riley, Spring 2015

HUM 1, Dialogues with the Classics, Paul Carranza, Caroline Dever, Andrea Tarnowski, Timothy Pulju, Fall 2015

WRIT 5, On Poor Taste, William Boyer, Fall 2015

SART 15.01, Drawing I, Colleen Randall, Spring 2020

ARTH 41.02, 20th Century European Art 1900-1945, Katie Hornstein, Fall 2021

SART 25.01, Painting I, Danielle Genadry, Summer 2022

WRIT 2.07, WRIT 3.01, Exposition and Composition, Erikki Mackey, Fall 2022

Studio Art 25.01, Painting I, Daniele Genadry, Summer 2023

Studio Art 15.04, Drawing I, Enrico Riley, Fall 2023

Spanish 9.04, Culture and Conversation, Roberto Rey Agudo, Winter 2024

Studio Art 25.01, Studio Art 31.01, Painting I, II, Daniele Genadry, Summer 2024

Exhibition History

20th Century Masters from the Permanent Collection, Barrows Windows, Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College Museum and Galleries, Hanover, New Hampshire, February 3-March 5, 1978.

Aquisition 1974-1978, Jaffe-Friede, Strauss and Barrows Galleries, Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College Museum and Galleries, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 8, 1978-Janaury 21, 1979.

Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 9, 1994-October 16, 1995.

Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 21, 1996-June 22, 1997.

Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 8-August 1, 1993.

Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 28, 2002-July 20, 2003.

Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio, September 12, 2016-June 19, 2018

Critical Faculties: Teaching with the Hood's Collections, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, February 21-March 13, 2005.

Cubism and Its Affinities, Strauss and Barrows Galleries, Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College Museum and Galleries, Hanover, New Hampshire, July 9-September 5, 1976.

Cubism and Its Aftershocks, Citrin Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 26, 2019-February 16, 2020.

Cubism and Its Legacy, Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, August 17-December 20, 2013.

Cubism: From Advanced Art History Seminar to Museum Installation, Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 28, 2004-February 20, 2005.

Cubist Art, Barrows Windows, Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College Museum and Galleries, Hanover, New Hampshire, February 4-March 20, 1977.

Cubist Exhibition, Carpenter Hall, Dartmouth College Museum and Galleries, Hanover, New Hampshire, April 6-June 11, 1979.

Early Modern Art from the Permanent Collection, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 16, 1995-April 7, 1996.

European Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, William B. Jaffe and Evelyn A. Jaffe Hall Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, August 30, 2008-March 8, 2009.

Four Americans in Paris: The Collections of Gertrude Stein and Her Family, Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York, June 17- August 10, 1970, The Baltimore Museum of Fine Arts, Baltimore, Maryland; San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts, San Francisco, California, 1970-1971.

In Quest of Excellence: Civic Pride, Patronage, Connoisseurship, Center for The Fine Arts, Miami, Florida, January 14-April 22, 1984.

Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, April 20, 2009-January 7, 2011.

Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, August 25, 1998-July 28, 2002.

Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 28, 2005-January 14, 2008.

Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, January 3, 2014 - January 17, 2016.

Main Lobby, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, August 1-December 5, 1994

Main Lobby, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 16, 1997-July 13, 1998.

Modernism: The Making of the 20th Century Vision, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, May 22-July 8, 1990.

Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York, September 20, 1989-January 16, 1990.

Picasso and the Great War, Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, February 13-May 9, 2016; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio, June 10-September 11, 2016.

Picasso Cubista, Milan, Italy, 1972, no. 544.

Picasso: Guitar Variations 1912-1914, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York, February 13-May 12, 2011.

Selections from the Permanent Collection: An Introduction to the History of Art From the Year 1500 to the Present, Art 2, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, February 11-March 7, 1993.

The Dartmouth Collection: 19th and 20th Century Paintings, Jaffe-Friede Gallery, Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College Museum and Galleries, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 17-November 6, 1982.

The Machine in the Garden: Cubist Art from the Hood Collection, Harrington Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, July 26-August 24, 1986.

The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California, May 21-September 6, 2011; RMN- Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, France, October 3, 2011-January 16, 2012; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York, February 21-June 3, 2012.

Transform: BildObjektSkulptur im 20. Jahrhundert, Kunstmuseum und Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland, 14. Juni bis 27. September 1992.

Twentieth Century Works from the Dartmouth Collection, Harrington Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 19-May 29, 1988.

Publication History

Theodora Vischer et.al, Transform: BildObjektSkulptur im 20. Jahrhundert, Basel: Kunstmuseum und Kunsthalle Basel, 1992, ill. p. 40.

William Rubin, Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism, Boston: Bullfinch Press - Little, Brown and Company, 1989, p. 455, no. 504.

Treasures of the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Trustees of Dartmouth College and New York: Hudson Hill Press, 1985, p. 130, no. 120.

Jacquelynn Baas, From "a few curious Elephants Bones" to Picasso, Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, September, 1985, Hanover, New Hampshire: Dartmouth College, 1985, pp. 37-43, ill. p. 42

Jan van der Marck, In Quest of Excellence: Civic Pride, Patronage, Connoisseurship, Miami: Trustees of The Center for the Fine Arts Association, 1984, p. 86.

Isabelle Monod-Fontaine, George Braque: The Papier Colles, Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1982, p.37, no. 24.

William S. Lieberman, The Nelson A. Rockefeller Collection, Masterpieces of Modern Art, New York: Hudson Hill Press, 1981, p. 78.

Catherine Tatge, Producer, Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (a production with Pat Carroll), New York: CBS Cable, 1981.

Pierre Daix and Joan Rosselet, La Cubisme de Picasso: Catalogue Raissone de L'oeuvre peint 1907-1916, Neuchatel, Switzerland: Editions Ides et Calendes, 1979, p. 287, no. 509.

Pierre Daix and Joan Rosselet, Picasso, The Cubist Years, 1907-1916, A Catalogue Raissonne of the Paintings and Related Works, Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1979, p. 287, no. 509.

Franco Russoli and Fiorella Minervino, Picasso Cubista, Milano: Rizzoli Editore, 1972, p. 544.

Irene Gordon, Four Americans in Paris: The Collections of Gertrude Stein and her Family, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1970, p. 171, color plate 52.

Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso (oeuvres de 1912 a 1917), Vol. II, Part 2, Paris, 1942, no. 373.

Sarah Greenough, Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and his New York Galleries, 1st ed., Catalogue of an exhibition held at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Jan. 28-April 200, 2001, Boston, New York, London: Bulfinch Press, Little, Brown and Company, 2000, 609 pp., fig. 78, ill. p.213.

Pepe Karmel, Picasso and the Invention of Cubism, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003, 233 pp., ill. p. 172.

Alice Gomstyn, "What's Under the Hood? A peek at some of the rarest and most offbeat items housed in the College's Hood Museum of Art," Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, Volume 96, Number 4, March-April 2004, pp. 30-31.

T. Barton Thurber, European Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2008, pp. 102-104, ill. p.102, no. 52.

Anne Umland, Picasso Guitars, 1912-1914, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2011, no. 9, p. 47.

Janet Bishop, Cecile Debray, and Rebecca Rabinow, The Steins Collect, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2012, pp. 282-283, Plate 232, cat. no. 263., ill. p. 283.

Barnes Foundation, Picasso: The Great War, Experimentation and Change, New York, Scala Arts Publishers, Inc./ The Barnes Foundation/ Columbus Museum of Art, 2016, plate 1, color ill. p. 46.

John R. Stomberg, The Hood Now: Art and Inquiry at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2019, p. 140, ill. plate no. 71.

Michael R. Taylor, Man Ray: The Paris Years, Richmond and New Haven: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in association with Yale University Press, 2021, 320 pp., ill. p. 51, fig. 51.

Provenance

[Gift of the artist]; to [Leo and] Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), Paris, by 1913; collection of Gertrude Stein, until her death in 1946; bequeathed to her nephew, Allan Stein (1895-1951), 1946 ["with the stipulation that Allice B. Toklas (1877-1967) is to have use of the estate until her own death"]; to his children [in the care of his wife Roubina Stein], 1951; removed to a bank vault, Paris by Roubina Stein, 1961; Marlborough Gallery, London, 1968-1970; Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (1908-1979), New York, 1970; given to present collection, 1975.

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