Pablo Picasso
Still Life with Chair Caning, 1911-12
Oil, cloth and paper on canvas, 29 x 37cm
Musée Picasso, Paris,

This very small canvas is one of the icons of Cubism. When it was first exhibited, the piece was a revolution as it was Picasso’s first true Synthetic Cubist work. had more or less invented the collage.

This process of incorporating everyday materials (cloth, newspapers, wrappers) into his paintings marked a move away from the austere cerebral abstraction of Analytical Cubism to the more relaxed and decorative Synthetic Cubism.