Cubism is an avant-garde art movement that started around 1907 by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. It revolutionized European painting and sculpture. Instead of painting subjects from a single perspective, artists broke figures and objects down and re-assembled them into abstract forms, showing how one scene, one person or even one object can have a myriad of viewpoints, all at once.
Cubism was one of the most influential styles of the twentieth century. It opened up infinite new possibilities. Many even credit it with starting the abstract movement.
So do you know what is the most expensive Cubist painting ever sold?
It is “Femme Assise” by Pablo Picasso. It was sold in 2016 for £43.2 million ($63.4 million) at Sotheby’s in London.
Femme Assise was painted in 1909 when the artist left Paris with his lover and model Fernande Olivier in order to spend the summer in Spain. The vacation proved to be one of the most significant periods of Picasso’s career.
In 1973, Femme Assise was sold at a Sotheby’s London auction for £340,000 ($486,000). It was bought by Adam Chinn of Art Agency for an anonymous buyer. About 40 years later, it was sold again for $63.4 million to another anonymous buyer. Now that’s what we call a sound investment… One of the best art investments we’ve ever seen!
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Femme Assise was exhibited at Acquavella Galleries in New York in 1975, The Museum of Modern Art in New York from 1989 to 1990, at Tate Gallery in London in 1994, and at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. from 2003-2004.
BALISSANDE FINISHING SCHOOL 