New research by French collector and self-proclaimed 'art detective' Alain Moreau challenges the long-held belief that Pablo Picasso's groundbreaking painting *Les Demoiselles d'Avignon* (1907) was primarily inspired by African art. Moreau's paper, published in the *Bulletin of the Reial Acadèmia Catalana de Belles Arts Sant Jordi*, argues that the painting instead drew from Medieval church frescoes in the Spanish and French Pyrenees, such as those in the church of La Vella de Sant Cristòfol in Campdevànol and the Romanesque murals of Sant Martí de Fenollar. He retraced Picasso's travels and notes that the African mask exhibited alongside the painting in a 1939 MoMA retrospective did not arrive in Europe until 1935, decades after the work was completed.
This matters because it reopens a century-old debate about the origins of one of modernism's foundational works, which has been central to discussions of cultural appropriation and the influence of African art on Western artists. If Moreau's thesis gains traction, it could shift art-historical narratives about Picasso's relationship with non-Western art and reframe the painting's meaning within the context of Catalan cultural heritage rather than colonial encounter. The claim also challenges the authority of earlier curators like Alfred Barr, who asserted the African mask's direct influence.