The First Collage: Still Life with Chair Caning

Still Life with Chair Caning dates from 1912. We just talked about papier collé, or collage, alongside Georges Braque. The two began by pasting cut-up newspapers and magazines onto the canvas, and later added fabric, paint mixed with sand, and other everyday materials beyond paper. This work is known as Picasso's first collage.

At first, collage had modest subjects and used materials that anyone could find in daily life, so it didn't fit the bourgeois view of art at the time. Ironically, such works are now displayed in more important places than the pieces that once celebrated refinement. Picasso and Braque set out to put on canvas subjects and forms that earlier artists had ignored or never imagined, and collage was born along the way. People say collage once again proved Picasso's innovative force in modern art.