Picasso's African Period Picasso's African Period Picasso's African Period, which was three years long, lasted from 1906 to 1909, was the period when Pablo Picasso painted in a style which was strongly influenced by African sculpture and particularly traditional African masks. This proto-Cubist period following Picasso's Blue Period and Rose Period has also been called the Negro Period, or Black Period. In the early 20th century, African artworks were being brought back to Paris museums in consequence of the expansion of the French empire into Sub-Saharan Africa. The press was abuzz with exaggerated stories of cannibalism and exotic tales about the African kingdom
Blue-faced honeyeater Latham in his 1801 work "Supplementum Indicis Ornithologici, sive Systematis Ornithologiae". However, he described it as three separate species, seemingly not knowing it was the same bird in each case: The blue-eared grackle ("Gracula cyanotis"), the blue-cheeked bee-eater ("Merops cyanops"), and as the blue-cheeked thrush ("Turdus cyanous"). It was as the blue-cheeked bee-eater that it was painted between 1788 and 1797 by Thomas Watling, one of a group known collectively as the Port Jackson Painter. It was reclassified in the genus "Entomyzon", which was erected by William Swainson in 1825, who observed the "Blue-faced Grakle" as the only insectivorous member