Pablo Picasso: Boy Leading a Horse

Striking and enigmatic, Boy Leading a Horse marks a turning point in Picasso's use of color, composition and subject matter

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) developed the monumental, mysterious painting Boy Leading a Horse (1905–6) from an unrealized mural during a pivotal period of evolution in his art. He was emerging from his "Blue Period" and his "Rose Period," but not yet at work on the groundbreaking Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907). 

Through vigorous brushstrokes and a stark palette of gray and ochre, Picasso invokes an impressive set of past and present artworks in his rendering of the two figures in Boy Leading a Horse. The scene is detached from time and place, and the striding boy and his horse project a steely firmness of mind, body and purpose ― yet the purpose is unknown. In this volume of the One on One series, Annemarie Iker offers a close examination of this composition, produced during a phase of private introspection and art historical investigation at the start of the 20th century. 

This is the second volume of the series to be dedicated to a work by Picasso in MoMA's collection, and illustrates a transitional moment in his oeuvre as fascinating as his more defined eras.