I probably have seen a Picasso before, in one of my many museum trips in grade school and since. But ever since our first IDC class, when Professor Eversley stressed that we will get up close with Picasso paintings in our adventures, I’d been thinking about art more and more. So when we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one thing I really looked forward to (more than the Amie Siegal exhibition, in fact) was getting up close with a Picasso.

Pablo Picasso, La Coiffure (1906)

Picasso’s La Coiffure (1906) caught my eye for one particular reason. I read on the little museum label that this painting was the result of four different paintings, layered on top of one another. When I looked further into this, I found out that Picasso had painted three finished paintings in one canvas and then rotated the canvas 180 degrees to get this final look. Frankly, this amazed me because at first glance, one would have no idea that this was the case. I feel like this painting was a reflection of Picasso’s determination to display only the best of his work.

You can read a more in-depth explanation of this painting here.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art