Mary LeGarde is a shapeshifter. Depending on the motif and emotion, she may work in Figurative Realism, Impressionism, Surrealism or Narrative Art.

For her painting in this year’s Naples Invitational, she combined Figurative Realism with Cubism. It was a necessity. Her muse was Pablo Picasso. The man pioneered the notion of artistic shapeshifting.

“We see him as this very tough, strong man,” said LeGarde. “That's our memory of him. And that’s how he saw himself.”

LeGarde calls her painting “Picasso’s Mirror.”

On the left, she’s rendered a realistic portrait of the artist in his iconic striped shirt, capturing the man as history remembers him: uncompromising, unabashed, full of machismo.

On the right is his Cubist self-portrait revealing the turmoil he experienced in his final days.

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