The oil-on-canvas painting Composition avec tache rouge is on view in María Blanchard. A Painter in Spite of

 Cubism 

A term coined by the French critic Louis Vauxcelles (1870-1943) to designate the art movement that appeared in France in 1907 thanks to Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) and Georges Braque (1882-1963), which brought about a definitive break with traditional painting. Widely viewed as the first avant-garde movement of the twentieth century, its main characteristic is the representation of nature through the use of two-dimensional geometric forms that fragment the composition, completely ignoring perspective. This visual and conceptual innovation meant a huge revolution and played a key role in the development of twentieth-century art.

, a monographic exhibition organized by Museo Picasso de Málaga with the aim of highlighting the innovativeness, rich symbolism and social commitment of the artist’s work.

The survey show features around ninety works which, taken together, outline a path through the various phases in her relatively short career as an artist, lending particular attention to her contribution to the modern movement. In fact, Blanchard was the first woman in Spain to systematically use cubist methods to construct images. Her singular combination of geometric elements and a deft juxtaposition of simultaneous perspectives imprint an original personality both on the more abstract works from her early period as well as on her figurative compositions post-1920.

The BBVA Collection is collaborating with this major project through the temporary loan of one of the masterpieces in its holdings: a mother and child scene painted in 1916, the year María Blanchard moved to Paris, and an excellent example of her Cubist period (1913-1919), attesting to her masterful control of both colour and composition. As evinced in this delicate oil on canvas, the artist departed from the colder, more analytic versions of the movement and addressed her subject matters from a highly personal vision, reflecting a distinctly feminine concern for the vulnerability of the human condition and the evocative power of emotion.