Commissions and the Carl H. Lieber Memorial Fund
Prints, Drawings, and Photographs
In 1927, Ambroise Vollard commissioned Picasso to illustrate Honoré de Balzac's strange 1837 tale Le Chef d'oeuvre inconnu (The Unknown Masterpiece).
Balzac related a story of a celebrated painter who had secretly worked for ten years on a portrait of his model into which he had invested all of his creativity. When the "masterpiece" was shown, viewers saw only an impenetrable web of lines and colors, which were incomprehensible to everyone but the artist.
Metadata about the Indianapolis Museum of Art’s collection comes from Newfields’ records and research. In some cases, information may be incomplete and research is ongoing. Newfields’ goal is to have as up-to-date metadata as possible, therefore, this information is subject to change. Newfields collections’ metadata is available under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) waiver, which allows for re-use without legal restrictions.
Artworks that appear in the image file(s) above may be in copyright or have other legal and/or cultural restrictions to their use. For clarity, Newfields does not claim copyright to the image files created by Newfields of artworks in the Indianapolis Museum of Art’s collection. Newfields makes every effort to ascertain the copyright status of artworks in the Indianapolis Museum of Art’s collection. Please refer to the RightsStatements.org statement above for information about the current copyright status of the artwork. Additionally, some artworks may include Local Context’s Notices or Labels that attribute cultural authority of the artwork’s heritage and data.
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