Les femmes d’Alger 1955

Picasso made ‘Les femmes d’Alger’ with oil on canvas, and it's a riot of color and colliding forms! The painting has this amazing surface, thick with paint, where you can almost feel the energy of Picasso working. There’s a real physicality to it. Look at the woman on the left, particularly how the red of her dress is outlined. See how Picasso laid down those strokes with such decisiveness, but they're not trying to trick you into believing in her 'realness.' It's like he's saying, "Here's the red, here's the outline, now you put it together." It's this constant invitation to participate in the making of the image. It makes you feel like a co-conspirator in this visual game. You can see echoes of Matisse in the color and subject matter, but Picasso takes it somewhere totally new. It's not just a painting of women; it's about the act of seeing, the act of painting, and how those two things can get all tangled up together.