Fernando Botero’s Picnic in the Mountains (1966)

Botero’s picnics express moments of happiness, abundance, and love of life in the landscape with ample food, wine, and other provisions. Sometimes, his picnickers are so relaxed they fall asleep. His early exploration of the picnic theme, Picnic in the Mountains,...

Pál Szinyei Merse’s Postage Picnic in May [aka Majális] (1967)

The Hungarian government has issued postage stamps in honor of Merse’s standing among the nation’s most important painters. The former was published in 1966 and the latter in 1967. Majális celebrates the seasonal change and the Hungarian custom of dining outside in...

Joan Miró’s The Rustics Gingham (1969)

Miró probably printed this image of rustics at play on a typical picnic cloth of red gingham as a decorative joke. Miró has said it’s never easy for him to talk about his art. In a letter to Pierre Matisse, however, he explains that he is drawn to his objects by some...

John Bellany’s Lovers by the Sea (1970s?)

Strange figures and vibrant colors make this picnic unsettling. The setting appears to be a sailboat in which a puffin sits beside a bare-breasted woman with a face like a mask. There is a  dog in her lap and a striped tabby at her knee. Above the funnel (lower right)...

Romare Bearden’s Khayam and the Black Girl (1971)

For his take on “Quatrain XI” of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, Bearden transports Omar Khayyám Old World Persia to New World Tropics f. Though the poem suggests sensuality, Bearden presents the poet clothed but the woman naked, except for a body sash and a head...

Alexander Moffat’s The Picnics (1963)

Moffat’s picnics, all titled Picnic and all completed in 1963, are influenced by Fernand Leger’s Partie de champagne series o paintings.  Featured Image: The Picnic at the New Bridge

Clementine Hunter’s The Picnic (1980?)

Hunter is a self-taught artist, whose subjects are mainly depictions of the environs of Melrose Plantation in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana. Picnic belies the fact that Hunter’s life was difficult. She was poor, illiterate, yet embued with a strong soul yearning to...

Anne Burgess’s Picnic by a River 1982)

Burgess’s Picnic by a River is The New Yorker’s August cover. By the side of a placid river, a mother, father, and son sit on a plate of cheese, a bowl of salad, a loaf of bread, fruits, and lemonade, Mother has a plate, and the son has a sandwich. Shoes off, they...

Harold Altman’s Picnic in Central Park (1985)

It makes you want to picnic in Central Park. See Harold Altman. Picnic in Central Park (1985). Lithograph

Larry Rivers’s Picnics (1985-1990)

Rivers expressed his appreciation of good picnic fun in Picnic (1985) and The Pleasant Picnic (1990). Both are inspired by Leger’s series La Partie de Campagne [The Country Outing, or Picnic] (1952/53). The Pleasant Picnic changes the scene. Now the picnickers...