Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

The first time I really saw this painting was a couple of years ago, when MoMA moved to Queens while the Midtown building was being renovated. Sure, I’d seen Picasso’s 1907 masterpiece, which depicts five naked women at a brothel, before, but its force only truly struck me in Queens, when I overheard a mother lean over to her daughter and, in a strong Long Island accent, stage-whisper, "That's the most important painting of the twentieth century."

She was right, of course; even Newsweek thinks so, naming “Les Demoisselles d’Avignon” the most influential work of art in the past 100 years. But none of this changes the fact that I kind of hate it. Don't get me wrong: whenever I'm at MoMA, I always pop in to see it. That I find it absolutely aesthetically unpleasing doesn't damper my attraction to it, perhaps the ultimate modern mash-up of artistic styles and influences. Picasso was 26 when he began "Demoiselles."

Right now MoMA is celebrating the painting’s centennial by displaying it in its own gallery, along with several preliminary sketches. The gallery notes explain that Picasso filled sixteen notebooks before putting a single brush stroke on canvas. (One thing I love about this kind of additional material is that it always puts the lie to our romantic notions of the work, complete and perfect, springing fully formed from the artist's head.) One thing is for sure: the painting hasn't lost an iota of creepiness in the past 100 years.