The Three Dancers

Picasso rendered this The Three Dancers in 1925, marking a violent break from his classical period. Three distorted figures dance frantically before a balcony. Their angular bodies and grimacing faces express psychological torment rather than graceful movement.

Picasso painted it during marital crisis with his first wife Olga. He later revealed the painting memorialized his friend Ramon Pichot, who died during its creation, and Pichot's wife Germaine, who had driven another friend to suicide. The painting anticipates Surrealism and connects to Guernica's anguished figures. It hangs at Tate Modern.