Head of a Woman

© Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
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Head of a Woman

France, 1906
Paintings
Oil on canvas
13 3/4 × 8 1/2 in. (34.93 × 21.59 cm)
Partial, fractional and promised gift of Janice and Henri Lazarof (M.2005.70.98)
Modern Art
Currently on public view:
Broad Contemporary Art Museum, floor 3

Since gallery displays may change often, please contact us before you visit to make certain this item is on view.

Label

Early in 1906, twenty-five-year-old Picasso visited an exhibition of ancient Iberian sculpture at the Louvre in Paris....
Early in 1906, twenty-five-year-old Picasso visited an exhibition of ancient Iberian sculpture at the Louvre in Paris. In June he returned to his native Spain with Fernande Olivier, his companion and model; they spent the summer in Gósol (a remote town in the Pyrenees), where he was captivated by examples of medieval Catalan sculpture and made numerous depictions of Olivier using pale colors and dark outlines. After returning to Paris, Picasso’s paintings featured a muted palette, geometrically streamlined forms, rectilinear outlines, and mask-like faces with deep-set eyes, a harbinger of the forms to come in his iconic Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907). Olivier, the subject of this painting, was depicted in more than sixty of his works, including the Head of a Woman sculpture also on view in this gallery.

Wall label, 2021.
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Bibliography

  • Barron, Stephanie. Envisioning Modernism: The Janice and Henri Lazarof Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich; New York: DelMonico Books-Prestel, 2012.