What Was the Most Revolutionary Painting of the 20th Century?: The Case for Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon

Practically anyone could take one glance at Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and identify it as a Picasso, even if they’ve never seen it before and couldn’t say anything else about it. That alone goes some way to explaining why the painting would end up ranked as the most important artwork of the twentieth century, at least according to a study by University of Chicago economist David W. Galenson. For that title it beat out the likes of Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty,