Pablo Picasso’s Nature Morte au Citron et au Pichet Rouge (Still Life with Lemon and Red Pitcher), 1955, a color aquatint on BFK Rives wove paper. It is a vibrant example of Picasso’s radical reinvention of the still life genre, a theme he returned to repeatedly across his career, each time reshaping it to align with his evolving artistic vision.

The composition depicts a lemon, an orange, leafy sprigs, and a boldly stylized red pitcher, arranged against a swirling blue and white background. The objects are simplified into bold, almost sculptural forms, their contours distorted to emphasize volume and energy rather than realism.

The lemon glows with a bright yellow core, contrasted by a soft green outline, while the red pitcher is rendered with sweeping curves and deep black shadows, transforming it into a dynamic, almost anthropomorphic form. The swirling background, painted in blues and whites, enhances the sense of movement, making the still life appear alive and animated rather than static.

The overall effect is both playful and monumental, turning ordinary domestic objects into expressive icons.

Picasso uses color aquatint, a printmaking technique that allows for painterly richness and vibrant tonal variation. This method enables him to treat the plate as though it were a canvas, layering bold, saturated colors while maintaining the crisp definition of graphic contours.

The BFK Rives wove paper, known for its fine texture and absorbency, heightens the intensity of the aquatint pigments, producing a luminous effect. Picasso’s combination of painterly gestures with the discipline of printmaking underscores his inventiveness: he takes a traditionally subtle technique and pushes it into a realm of bold expression.

In Nature Morte au Citron et au Pichet Rouge, Picasso continues his lifelong reinvention of the still life tradition. Where earlier European still lifes emphasized careful illusionism, perspective, and symbolic allegory, Picasso reduces objects to pure form, color, and rhythm, stripping away realism in favor of expressive vitality.

The lemon, orange, and pitcher are no longer depicted as inert objects but as living presences, pulsating with energy. The bold distortions and exaggerated forms suggest not observation but interpretation and transformation, making the still life a stage for artistic invention.

By reinventing the genre, Picasso reclaims still life from its status as a “secondary” subject in academic hierarchy, elevating it into a vehicle for modernist experimentation. Everyday objects become symbols of creativity itself, endlessly reshaped by the artist’s vision.

Nature Morte au Citron et au Pichet Rouge (1955) is a color aquatint by Pablo Picasso, printed on BFK Rives wove paper. Depicting a lemon, an orange, and a red pitcher against a lively blue and white ground, the work transforms ordinary still-life elements into bold, dynamic forms. Exemplifying Picasso’s mastery of color aquatint, the piece demonstrates how he reinvented the still life genre, rejecting realism in favor of expressive abstraction, and elevating humble domestic objects into symbols of vitality, rhythm, and artistic invention.