NARRATOR:
During several periods of his life, Pablo Picasso explored forms from Classical antiquity. This woman, drawn in 1923, recalls marble statues from ancient Greece or Rome. She’s blocky and solid, with massive features. Her drape is a simple tunic. Like a marble statue, it’s monochromatic—except for his signature, in the upper right corner.
But unlike most classical statues, this woman’s expression isn’t noble or heroic. It’s pensive, perhaps even anxious. Her hands seem to float in space. The right hand at first glance seems to cradle the left elbow. But look carefully and you’ll see the sharp contrast between the light on the fingers and the dark of the left elbow, that makes it seem as if Picasso has captured a brief moment in time, when the woman is shifting her position. Her left hand, with fingers spread, actually seems to jut out from the surface of the canvas toward us, instead of resting on her chin. A strong light source from above, to the left, gives this arm a powerful three-dimensional quality. It’s as if Picasso has brought an ancient statue to life, to confront the complexities of the modern world.
Bust of a Woman
1923
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973)
On View
In the years following the First World War—a time of bewildering flux throughout Europe—Picasso participated in a broader cultural phenomenon known as the rappel à l’ordre (call to order). Like many other radical artists of the previous decade, he now turned to classical tradition in search of a stable aesthetic vocabulary; the result was a body of work emphasizing tone over color, and featuring figures that seemed carved from light and shadow. This picture—not really a painting at all, but a monumental drawing in black chalk on prepared canvas—affords a prime example. Blending, stumping, and erasing his dry medium, Picasso conjured the pensive, statuesque figure from a veil of chalk.
Details
- Artist Name: Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973)
- Title: Bust of a Woman
- Date: 1923
- Medium: Oil with fixed black chalk on canvas
- Dimensions: 39 1/4 x 32 in. (99.7 x 81.3 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Art Foundation
- Accession Number: M.1970.5.16.P
- Copyright: © Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Object Information
Pablo Picasso, Cannes, until November 1966.
[Galerie Beyeler, Basel, sold 24 February 1967 to];
[Paul Rosenberg & Co., New York; stock no. 6240, sold 17 April/7 September 1967 to];
Hunt Foods and Industries, gift 1970 to;
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
[Galerie Beyeler, Basel, sold 24 February 1967 to];
[Paul Rosenberg & Co., New York; stock no. 6240, sold 17 April/7 September 1967 to];
Hunt Foods and Industries, gift 1970 to;
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
Picasso
- Galerie Beyeler, 1966-11 to 1967-02
Picasso Ingres: Face to Face_02
- Norton Simon Museum, 2022-10-21 to 2023-01-30
Picassos in Southern California: A Tribute to the Artist at 90
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1971-10-25 to 1971-11-21
The Nabis
- Norton Simon Museum, 1992-09-24 to 1993-07-18
Seven Decades of Picasso
- Norton Simon Museum, 1979-10-11 to 1980
Selections from the Norton Simon, Inc. Museum of Art
- Princeton University Art Museum, 1972-12-03 to 1974-07-17
Reinstallation of South Wing
- Norton Simon Museum, 1993-10-07 to 1995-08-13
- Steadman, David, Art Journal, fig. 13 p. 38
- Steadman, David W., The Connoisseur, p. 230
- Steadman, David W., Selections from the Norton Simon, Inc. Museum of Art, 1972, no. 48 pp. 142-143
- Selleck, Jack, Faces, 1977, p. 80
- Masterpieces from the Norton Simon Museum, 1989, p. 193
- Westheimer, Dr. Ruth ; Charles Sullivan, The Lover's Companion, 2002, pp. 79, 80
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best, 2010, cat. 377 p. 291
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