Picasso masterpieces beaten by a toilet in art poll

A cameraman films Pablo Picasso's masterpiece painting "Guernica" in Madrid's Reina Sofia art museum. Picture / Reuters

LONDON - They are two of the most recognized works of art in the world, and they have lost out to an autographed toilet.

Pablo Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" and "Guernica" came second and fourth respectively in a poll of what 500 leading art world figures regarded as the five most influential works of modern art in the world.

They were beaten to the top spot by Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain," a tilted and signed white urinal which he offered to a shocked art world in 1917.

Third place in the survey by Turner Prize sponsor and gin manufacturer Gordon's went to Andy Warhol's "Marilyn Diptych," with Henri Matisse's "The Red Studio" in fifth place.

- REUTERS