Pablo Picasso's modest yet radical cardboard and sheet metal "Guitar" sculptures (1912 and 1914, respectively) bracket a truly incandescent period of structural, spatial and material experimentation for the artist. In October 1912, while in what he described as "the process of imagining a guitar," Picasso embraced the techniques of assemblage, collage, construction and mixed-media painting, frequently combining traditional artists' supplies--oil paint, charcoal, pastel, ink--with what were then unconventional materials, including cardboard, newspaper, wallpaper, sheet music and sand. Published in conjunction with an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, this volume situates Picasso's "Guitars" within the constellation of objects that surrounded them in his studio, affording a fresh understanding of the unique material and historical qualities of the artist's work in the years immediately prior to World War I. An essay by Anne Umland, Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum, uses photographs, correspondence, archival records and eyewitness accounts, to explore Picasso's practice and the remarkable institutional history behind the acquisition of the two "Guitar" sculptures, both gifts to MoMA from the artist.

Dada: The Collections of The Museum of Modern Art is the first publication devoted exclusively to MoMA's unrivalled collection of Dada works. Beginning with a core group acquired on the occasion of the landmark Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism exhibition of 1936, enriched in 1953 by a bequest selected by Marcel Duchamp, and steadily augmented over the years, the Museum's Dada collection presents the movement in its full international and interdisciplinary scope during its defining years, from 1916 through 1924. Catalyzed by the major Dada exhibition that appeared in Paris, Washington, D.C., and at The Museum of Modern Art in 2005-6, the book benefits from the latest scholarly thinking, not only as found in the exhibition's catalogues but also in the critical responses to them, as well as in an ambitious series of seminars organized around the show. Featuring generously illustrated essays that focus on a selection of the Museum's most important Dada works, this publication highlights works in many media, including books, journals, assemblages, collages, drawings, films, paintings, photographs, photomontages, prints, readymades and reliefs. It also includes a comprehensive catalogue of the Museum's Dada holdings, including those in the Museum's Archives and Library. Edited by Anne Umland and Adrian Sudhalter, members of the Museum's Department of Painting and Sculpture, this book inaugurates an ambitious new series of scholarly catalogues on the Museum's collection.