Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (
The Young Ladies of Avignon, and originally titled
The Brothel of Avignon) is a large
oil painting created in 1907 by the Spanish artist
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973). The work portrays five nude female
prostitutes from a
brothel on Carrer d'Avinyó (Avinyó Street) in
Barcelona. Each figure is depicted in a disconcerting confrontational manner and none are conventionally
feminine. The women appear as slightly menacing and rendered with angular and disjointed body shapes. Three figures on the left exhibit facial features in the
Iberian style of Picasso's native Spain, while the two on the right are shown with
African mask-like features. The
racial primitivism evoked in these masks, according to Picasso, moved him to "liberate an utterly original artistic style of compelling, even savage force."