From 1972 to 1980, Saul devoted himself to “recasting” famous paintings, generating subversive twists on Rembrandt’s Night Watch, de Kooning’s Woman, and, with particular intensity, Picasso’s Guernica. Between 1974 and 1976, he produced two large-scale versions of Guernica on canvas alongside five smaller works on board, all bristling with Saul’s signature distortions. Picasso’s Girl Before a Mirror (1978) emerged near the end of this period, but instead of exploring Picasso’s antiwar imagery, Saul turned to the 1932 depiction of a woman caught between self-image and reflection. While his composition retains the essential outlines of Picasso’s original—mirroring the figure’s split self—Saul infuses it with riotous colors, thick contours, and a manic humor that upends the painting’s meditative veneer.

This work is one of two versions Saul produced of Picasso’s Girl Before a Mirror in 1978; both are acrylic on board and measure 40 × 30 inches. Saul has retained this example in his personal collection for more than four decades, and it has never been publicly exhibited or reproduced. By reimagining a painting that had, by the late 1970s, attained iconic status, Saul recognizes modern art’s legacy while asserting his own disruptive voice within it—a vivid blend of homage and parody that aligns with his impulse to provoke. This painting also foreshadows future works, such as Picasso Pup, through which he continued to recast Picasso’s influence in a sardonic, character-driven mode.