Picasso – Tableaux magiques –

“Between the summer of 1926 and early 1930, Pablo Picasso created a group of some one hundred and fifty paintings, which marked a radical change in his work. This was recognised by the editor and critic Christian Zervos in 1938 as a new Picasso period of ‘Magic Paintings’.
These works, mainly heads and figures, are based on extreme formalisation and the use of a system of signs, creating an impression of constant metamorphosis.
The powerful effect of these works led to the the idea of  Picasso as an artist-magician, who could invent new forms that would affect the thinking of the spectator, today as much as at the time they were painted.”