Pastoral Landscape with Reclining Odalisque and Fruit

about Pastoral Landscape with Reclining Odalisque and Fruit

This reclining nude portrait of a woman on a picnic makes several different art historical references.

The bold, almost neon colors are reminiscent of the tropical paintings rendered by Gauguin at the end of the 19th century. The setting harkens back to "Luncheon in the Grass" by Manetl. And the pose is historically associated with sex workers and the goddess Venus, in paintings like "Olympia" by Manet, "Grande Odalisque" by Inges, and even further back like "Venus of Urbino" by Titian. By the early 1930s he had established a reputation as a member of the international avant-garde and exhibited with the most significant European artists including Paul Klee, Max Ernst, Wassily Kandinsky, Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, Hans Arp, and Fernand Léger. Pablo Picasso sponsored Benno’s first one-man show in Paris in 1934.