The "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon: Conserving a Modern Masterpiece"exhibition opens on May 9–August 27, 2007 at MoMA.Pablo Picasso began making sketches and preparatory studies for Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in the winter of 1906–07, producing hundreds over the ensuing months before arriving at the final composition by the fall. In celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary of the creation of this epoch-making painting, this installation is dedicated to the work and its complex, fascinating genesis.The exhibition reunites Les Demoiselles with a group of preparatory studies for the overall composition and for the individual figures, and also includes selected works created immediately before and after the iconic painting that highlight its generative role in the artist's oeuvre. Discoveries from recent conservation and archival materials tracing Les Demoiselles's journey to MoMA are also on view in the gallery and in the mezzanine of The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building.