User:Margearttangle/sandbox

Méret Oppenheim's best known artwork is Object (Le Déjeuner en fourrure) [Object (Breakfast in Fur)] (1936). Oppenheim's Object consists of a teacup, saucer and spoon that she covered with fur from a Chinese gazelle. The fur represents an affluent woman; the cup, hollow yet round, can evoke female genitalia; the spoon, with its phallic shape, further eroticizes the hairy object.[18] Originally spurred by a conversation Oppenheim had with Pablo Picasso and his lover Dora Maar in café Deux Magots about a fur bracelet she was wearing, Oppenheim created Object to liberate the saucer, spoon, and teacup from their original functions as consumer objects.[19] Viewers are thus able to feel emotions of joy and wonder when observing Object while also questioning the functionality of each of its components. The artwork’s title, developed by Breton, was inspired by both Leopold Sacher-Masoch’s novel Venus in Fur and Edouard Manet’s Dejeuner sur l’herbe.[20] During the same year of its creation, Object was purchased by Alfred Barr for the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and was included in the museum's first Surrealist exhibition titled Fantastic Art: Dada and Surrealism.[21] Oppenheim was willing to sell her artwork for one thousand francs, but Barr only offered her $50 and she accepted. This was the first Surrealist artwork that the museum acquired, and Oppenheim became known as the First Lady of MoMA.[22]