©Pablo Picasso - Woman with a shirt sitting in a chair 1913

Picasso Woman with a shirt sitting in a chair 1913
Woman with a shirt sitting in a chair
1913 149x99cm oil/canvas
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

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From The Metropolitan Museum of Art:
This painting is a masterpiece of Synthetic Cubism. Abstract planes in a range of tans and pinks are combined with acutely realistic details, such as the model’s embroidered slip and the tufts of the violet armchair. The pendulous breasts, protruding navel, and squat proportions owe much to Fang and Baule sculpture from Gabon and the Ivory Coast. The smooth surfaces and carefully rendered fabrics are a nod to the work of Ingres, whose birthplace and museum Picasso had visited a few months earlier. Woman in a Chemise announces Picasso’s return to the overt depiction of female sexuality after several years of ambiguously gendered figures. It is a provocative image, which has been interpreted as both misogynistic (the breasts appear almost nailed onto the body) and as a bemused send-up of naughty erotica popular at the time.