©Pablo Picasso - Woman with yellow hair 1931

Picasso Woman with yellow hair 1931
Woman with yellow hair
1931 100x81cm oil/canvas
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA

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From Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum:
When Picasso met Marie-Thérèse on January 11, 1927 in front of Galeries Lafayette in Paris, she was 17 years old. As he was married at the time and she only a teenager, they were compelled to conceal their intense love affair. While their illicit liaison was hidden from public view, its earliest years are documented, albeit covertly, in Picasso’s work. Five still lifes painted during 1927 incorporating the monograms “MT” and “MTP” as part of their compositions cryptically announce the entry of Marie-Thérèse into the artist’s life. By 1931 explicit references to her fecund, supple body and blond tresses appear in harmonious, voluptuous images such as Woman with Yellow Hair. Marie-Thérèse became a constant theme; she was portrayed reading, gazing into a mirror, and, most often, sleeping, which for Picasso was the most intimate of depictions.
The abbreviated delineation of her profile a continuous, arched line from forehead to nose became Picasso’s emblem for his subject, and appears in numerous sculptures, prints, and paintings of his mistress. Rendered in a sweeping, curvilinear style, this painting of graceful repose is not so much a portrait of Marie-Thérèse the person as it is Picasso’s abstract, poetic homage to his young muse.
Nancy Spector