Lecture 9: Cubism and the birth of abstraction

If you missed Lecture 9: Cubism and the birth of abstraction from Terence Maloon’s series The 50 years that changed painting 1867–1917, you can watch the recorded version below or on our Youtube channel. 

The lecture series continues on the first Sunday of each month till September 2025. Learn more about the upcoming lectures and book a seat here.

Lecture 9: Cubism and the birth of abstraction
Much to his consternation, the art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler began to notice that some visitors to his gallery in Paris – people who were seriously interested in the paintings by Picasso and Braque on display – not only failed to identify a “subject” in those paintings, but assumed that there was none to be found. The possibility of non-objective painting, bubbling under the surface for decades, was now within a hair’s breadth of being realized, much to Kahnweiler’s alarm. But were his apprehensions misplaced? Had the advent of “abstraction” not already occurred, long ago, in the “abstract way of seeing” whose occurrence we have noted in previous lectures? And had this abstract way of seeing not already become entrenched as a defining feature, even as the defining feature of modern art?