Painting Collection Pablo Picasso At the Café (1881—1973) Pablo Picasso painted this scene of a Parisian café in Montmartre at the age of 20, in the second year of his time in Paris. The work is one of the earliest examples of the Spanish artist’s “Blue Period” from 1901 to 1904, identifiable by the melancholy scenes and figures’ blue skin tones. Yet the color vibrancy and subject matter pays homage to the scenes of Parisian cafés by French artists such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The painting is oddly horizontal, almost cinematic, as it captures a fleeting moment in this nighttime scene. Picasso squeezes the figures into the frame, with two women on one side—one whispering into the other’s ear, both wearing ornate hats of the period—and the waiter on the other side. Picasso crops the waiter so only his uniformed torso and service items are shown. With no central focus, the figures become part of the interior, painted with the same broad, hurried brushstrokes. The café represented was later identified as L’Hippodrome near Picasso’s studio, the site where the artist’s friend, writer and artist Carlos Casagemas, committed suicide, a grievous event that most likely influenced the somber tone of the “Blue Period” paintings. |
  
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