Standing before Pablo Picasso's "Night Fishing at Antibes" (1939) at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, visitors encounter more than just a Cubist masterpiece. This sprawling work, measuring 6.75 by 11.3 feet, captures a deceptively peaceful scene that carries profound warnings about war and human nature, displayed at one of the museum's busiest intersections on the fifth floor.
The painting depicts a balmy August night in 1939, illuminated by a large yellow moon over the waters off Antibes in southern France. Two fishermen work from their boat - one aiming at a large fish with a pitchfork, the other trying his luck with a fishing line while a cautious crab maintains a safe distance. Gas lamps reflect on the water's surface, and a girl on a bicycle observes the scene from a high dock while enjoying ice cream, accompanied by a friend. The luxurious atmosphere suggests normalcy, with Monaco less than an hour away by car and Nice even closer.
However, beneath this calm surface lurked malignant tides that would soon unleash the Second World War, just weeks after Picasso completed this work. The painting's timing proves particularly significant, as 1939 was also the year Picasso loaned his most famous anti-war painting, "Guernica" (1937), to MoMA for safekeeping after war broke out in Europe. This coincidence highlights the complex relationship between art, conflict, and institutional preservation.
The painting's acquisition history reveals deeper ironies about war profiteering and art patronage. MoMA acquired the piece in 1952 through Olga Hirsh Guggenheim, wife of industrialist-philanthropist Simon Guggenheim and sister-in-law to Solomon R. Guggenheim, founder of the eponymous museum on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue. The Guggenheim family built their fortune through a global mining and smelting empire that reached its peak during World War I, with accusations of war profiteering through inflated copper prices essential to the arms industry.
This pattern of those who profit from war simultaneously collecting and safeguarding anti-war art extends to contemporary times. Many current MoMA donors and board members face similar accusations of extractivism and profiting from the military-industrial complex, yet they remain prominent patrons of the arts. The wheel of historical irony continues turning as the same institutions that preserve messages of peace often have financial ties to those who manufacture the instruments of war.
The painting's contemporary relevance becomes starkly apparent when viewed against current global tensions. As visitors contemplate Picasso's warning about impending conflict, modern parallels emerge with disturbing clarity. The United States, eight decades after the atomic conclusion of World War II, continues positioning nuclear submarines near adversaries like Russia, while artificial intelligence threatens to make any future conflict infinitely more horrific than previous wars.
Outside MoMA's walls, life continues with the same oblivious normalcy depicted in Picasso's scene. Manhattan's streets teem with people shopping, sightseeing, and enjoying ice cream, going about their daily business under the punishing August sun. Yet each person resembles Picasso's fishermen - ordinary individuals pursuing their routines while potentially catastrophic forces gather beneath the surface of apparent calm.
The challenge of properly viewing this masterpiece at MoMA reflects broader difficulties in heeding its warnings. Currently hung at a busy intersection connecting two escalators, the painting makes it nearly impossible for visitors to have a private moment with the work or fully absorb its prophetic message about humanity's perpetual proximity to devastating conflict.
Picasso's "Night Fishing at Antibes" ultimately serves as both a time capsule of 1939's false tranquility and a mirror reflecting our contemporary moment. The fishermen in the painting, like people today, continue their daily pursuits while unaware of the deeper currents that could soon engulf them. History may not repeat itself exactly, but the patterns of human behavior and the cyclical nature of conflict remain disturbingly consistent across generations.
