What if Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Demoiselles_d'Avignon actually had been on the Titanic (as happened in James Cameron's movie but not in real life) and was now at the bottom of the Atlantic instead of hanging in the Museum of Modern Art in New York? Remember that in OTL it was not exhibited to the public until 1916; it "stayed in Picasso's studio for many years. At first, only Picasso's intimate circle of artists, dealers, collectors and friends were aware of the work..." Perhaps at their urging he could repaint it from surviving sketches and black-and-white photographs (I doubt there was a color reproduction of it yet). But perhaps he wouldn't; he was after all famous for his frequent changes of style, and he might conclude that this represented a past stage of his work he did not want to revisit.
See https://www.theguardian.com/artanddes…/…/sep/04/arttheft.art which comments on Cameron's "counterfactual history of modern art" and argues that if the painting really had been lost "Surely it would obsess us even more than it does." Would it, though? I doubt it would be sufficiently well-known to do so...
See https://www.theguardian.com/artanddes…/…/sep/04/arttheft.art which comments on Cameron's "counterfactual history of modern art" and argues that if the painting really had been lost "Surely it would obsess us even more than it does." Would it, though? I doubt it would be sufficiently well-known to do so...