Still Life (c. 1916): Art, History and Details

Still Life (c. 1916) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is María Blanchard (Spanish, 1881–1932).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The Spanish artist María Blanchard worked in Paris as a Cubist between 1916 and 1919. In Still Life, she portrayed multiple, simultaneous viewpoints in an abstract style based on geometry and flat planes. Although other Cubists used collage elements in their work, Blanchard was unique in her use of three-dimensional elements to create an image that fluctuates between the concrete and the illusionary. During her lifetime, Blanchard was celebrated by her fellow Cubists, and she shared studios with Juan Gris and Diego Riviera, the latter of whom described her as producing Cubism’s “finest works, apart from our master, Picasso.”

Object facts

• Title: Still Life
• Date: c. 1916
• Creator attribution: María Blanchard (Spanish, 1881–1932)
• Culture: France, Paris
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil, sand, and mixed media collage on canvas
• Dimensions: 65.8 x 52.4 cm (25 7/8 x 20 5/8 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 2026.37

A detail from the museum

This work of art, which combines two- and three-dimensional elements, challenges the long-established notion that an artwork should consist of a single medium.

Collection credit

Partial purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund and partial gift of Mr. and Mrs. Maurice Saltzman, by exchange

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.