Picasso Study Club

New Yorkers were nuts about Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) in the 1930s. Elizabeth Olds thought the hero-worship ridiculous, largely because she suspected that most people hadn’t bothered to understand the Spanish artist’s work. The distorted faces of these Picasso Study Club members look right at home next to the abstract artworks they’re studying. Old’s satire coincided with an exhibition of 300 Picasso works that opened in New York in 1939, his biggest U.S. show to date.