Figure

‘Constructed of lines and closed geometric shapes, this seated woman looks more like a monument than a person. She is the schematic version of a costumed figure for the 1917 ballet Parade in which human features are commingled with urban architecture. Her abstract painted form-over-sized circled breasts, elongated body, and miniature head—resembles the gigantic ironwork of sculptors such as Alberto Giacometti and Alexander Calder. Defying traditional representations of space and perspective, Picasso’s linear and geometric forms redefine the two-dimensionality of the painted scene. In making space ambiguous, they give the impression of a three-dimensional object so open that one can look into it.

A study, dated 11 June 1946 and related to this painting, appears beside an elaborate portrait of Françoise Gilot (born 1921) on a drawing sheet in the collection of the Musée Picasso in Paris ([Woman in an Armchair [Françoise Gilot]], on deposit in Antibes, Musée Picasso). The abstract drawing so faithfully corresponds to the present painting that one would expect the drawing to be a preparatory study. The reverse of the painting is, however, dated three days earlier-confirmation of Picasso’s habit of making drawings after completed paintings, presumably as a form of personal documentation.

Françoise Gilot met Picasso in May 1943. A few years later, she came to symbolize the femme-fleur, or woman-flower, in his work (Woman in an Armchair [Françoise Gilot]). Françoise dominated the early years in Vallauris, just as the shapely Marie-Thérèse Walter had done in the Boisgeloup period. Several of the female portraits from 1946 that were in the inventory of Picasso’s estate are based on Françoise and depict perfect-circle breasts and a slender tapered body. This painting and one other (Succession no. 13078) are wirelike; two are similarly sculptural but massive (Succession no. 13098 and Woman in an Armchair [Françoise Gilot]). The tiny head and balloonlike breasts also appear in two series of pencil and colored-pencil drawings from the artist’s estate.

The series from 22 June 1946 (Succession nos. 4827-4831) shows studies for the four-cornered head; the other, from 25-28 June 1946 (Succession nos. 4836, 4845-4854) of which the majority are in the Musée Picasso in Paris, shows sticklike women with full, round breasts. These sketches, thought to have been made after the present painting and matched drawing, give evidence of Picasso’s continued fascination with the reworking of these elements’.


Text: GIMÉNEZ, Carmen (ed). Collection Museo Picasso Málaga. Malaga: Museo Picasso Málaga, 2003, pp.124-126.