Skip to Main Content
Home>Highlights - Picasso - Circus Performers

Images of circus perfomers by Pablo Picasso: 1904-1905

Pablo Picasso, Six Circus Horses with Riders, 1905.

1 of 3
A pale, gray skinned young man stands next to a vase and plate of food against a pinkish-tan background in this loosely painted vertical painting on cardboard. The man’s body faces us but he looks down and slightly to our right with deeply shadowed eyes under dark brows. He has close-cropped, dark brown hair, a straight nose, and his full mouth is closed. He wears a slate-blue, fitted jacket over leggings, both painted with smudges of gray, dark green, and lilac purple, and some areas of the tan background show through. His feet are bare. The man’s left elbow, on our right, is bent so he holds his hand at his chest. The fingers of his other hand splay over his hip. Loosely painted and indistinct, a box-like form next to the man’s feet seems to be draped with a translucent white cloth. The box or table holds a tall terracotta vase behind a white dish. Four oval-shaped objects, painted with marigold orange and buttercup yellow, fill the plate and another sits on the cloth next to the dish. Sweeping but vague coral-peach lines and washes on the background suggest that the man may stand in front of a curtain. The artist signed the work “Picasso” in the lower left.

Pablo Picasso, Juggler with Still Life, 1905.

2 of 3
A young man and boy look at a man laid out on a bed in this horizontal composition. All three people have white-colored skin and are loosely painted, as is the incomplete setting. The man lies with his eyes closed on the bed with his head to our left and feet to our right. He is on a baby-blue field, perhaps a blanket, and his head is propped up on a thick white pillow. He has black hair and delicate features, and his hands are together in prayer over his belly. The white ruffled collar and a diamond made up of smaller red, blue, yellow, and black diamonds are painted on his shoulder. The rest of his body is blocked in loosely with lapis blue except the cuff we can see, which is bright white. The young man and boy look on from near the man’s shins on the far side of the bed. Both have close-cropped hair. The young man cranes his neck forward, and his head and shoulders are surrounded by a white field against the brown cardboard on which this is painted. His garment is white over the shoulders and red on the torso. Only the head and neck of the boy are visible beyond the prone man. The artist signed the work in black in the lower right corner, “Picasso.”

Pablo Picasso, The Death of Harlequin [recto], 1905.

3 of 3