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Prints and Drawings
Artist: Pablo Picasso, Spanish, active France, 1881–1973
Standing Nude
early 1910
Pen and Ink
sight in frame: 61.5 × 42 cm (24 3/16 × 16 9/16 in.)
framed: 85.09 × 64.77 cm (33 1/2 × 25 1/2 in.)
framed: 85.09 × 64.77 cm (33 1/2 × 25 1/2 in.)
Gift of Walter Bareiss, B.S. 1940S
1978.107
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).
Geography:
Made in France
Status:
Culture:
Spanish
Period:
20th century
Classification:
Works on Paper - Drawings and Watercolors
Provenance:
Adrien Chappuis, Paris, before 1942 (Chappuis is author of catalogue raisonne of Cezanne drawings; known as Cezanne scholar); Richard Davis; Walter Bariess, before 1965.
Bibliography:
Susan Greenberg Fisher et al., Picasso and the Allure of Language, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2009), 54, 56, no. 5, fig. 1.
Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of such records is ongoing.