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The Guitar

ca. 1919
Not on view
Musical references permeate Cubist painting and sculpture. The guitar, depicted often by Pablo Picasso, is one of the most recognizable Cubist motifs. Like a Cubist painting, Laurens’s sculpture blurs, even inverts, the relationship between solids and voids; solids appear to recede, while voids assume physical presence. This effect is particularly apparent in the face of the guitar, which has given way to a segment of the instrument’s sound hole, over which Laurens has depicted strings.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: The Guitar
  • Artist: Henri Laurens (French, 1885–1954)
  • Date: ca. 1919
  • Medium: Painted terracotta
  • Dimensions: 11 7/8 × 7 × 5 in., 1.7 lb. (30.2 × 17.8 × 12.7 cm, 0.8 kg)
  • Classification: Sculpture
  • Credit Line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Saidenberg, 1984
  • Object Number: 1984.209
  • Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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