Contacting Pablo Picasso

In his humorous lithograph Contacting Pablo Picasso, Adolf Dehn parodies avid gallery-goers who assume strange hybrid appearances, such as the fish-man at lower left, and contort themselves in bizarre ways to view a painting of a sphinx-like woman. Her features are distorted in the manner of the idiosyncratic style of the highly influential modern artist Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) during his so-called surrealist period of the 1930s. Dehn presents this masterpiece within a frame adorned by female breasts to poke fun at Picasso's art, which was renowned for showing human anatomy rearranged in unconventional ways, whereby it had helped redefine art in the early decades of the twentieth century. A bald tour guide standing in front of the painting addresses a motley yet intently gazing crowd. Pointing towards the artwork behind him, he is unaware that the painted nude's gaping mouth is about to devour his hand, while her paw-like hand reaches out of the painting to grab his shoulder. Other strange paintings boasting breast-like forms fill the background.

By 1940, when Dehn made this lithograph, Picasso had been celebrated for decades as innovative and iconoclastic painter, sculptor, and printmaker, and surrealism, in which recognizable objects are distorted or presented in bizarre juxtapositions, had been a popular artistic style for some years. Dehn's knowledge of the art of his day informs this engaging caricature of Picasso's creations challenging the public to understand them. This image suggests that unquestioning reverence for this giant of the contemporary art world might be hazardous. As shown by his lithograph Art Lovers (TF 1996.15), Dehn also disdained would-be art lovers who are seemingly mesmerized by works they have been told to admire.

L'Amérique et les Modernes, 1900–1950 (American Moderns, 1900–1950), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, July 25–October 31, 2000. [exh. cat.]

Lumsdaine, Joycelyn Pang and Thomas O'Sullivan et al. The Prints of Adolf Dehn: A Catalogue Raisonné. St. Paul, Minnesota: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1987. No. 321, p. 151.

Cartwright, Derrick R. and Paul J. Karlstrom. American Moderns, 1900–1950. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Text pp. 10, 60 (checklist); fig. 3, p. 11 (black & white). [specific reference to Terra print] Cartwright, Derrick R. and Paul J. Karlstrom. L'Amérique et les modernes, 1900–1950. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Text pp. 10, 60 (checklist); fig. 3, p. 11 (black & white). [specific reference to Terra print]