#527 Collage (Sur L’Oiseau Mort) (1926)

The silhouette of a man’s
head has the cutout of 
a bilboquet within it. 

Pinions a dead bird, an
image also found in a
painting done the same 

year. A whiff of sadism 
to them — the sparrow
usually emblematic of

fragility but here associ-
ated with a violent death.
Who knows what angst

remained in the painter’s
heart: but ever since, most of
his birds were live & white.