Standing Nude

After buying Vase, Gourd, and Fruit on a Table in 1909, Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo did not purchase any paintings from Picasso in 1910 or 1911. Leo disapproved of Picasso’s move toward abstraction. Gertrude, however, came to admire the complexity of Cubism and resumed collecting his work in 1912. Picasso’s intense exploration of a Cubist visual language is evident in this work, which is from a series of drawings and paintings of the female nude from early 1910. Though difficult to discern, the figure seems to lean on a mantelpiece or a sculpture stand, her hands interlaced and her forearms draped over the top and side of the shelf. Picasso’s nudes became increasingly abstract in the summer of 1910, when he included the form as one of four illustrations for Max Jacob’s autobiographical novel, Saint Matorel, during his summer stay in Cadaqués, Catalonia (Spain).