Detail of a Head of a Woman by Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, December 2008

Pablo Picasso
Spanish, 1881-1973

Head of a Woman, 1903
Oil on canvas
Signed (upper left): Picasso

Accession # 67.187.91

Among the artist's Blue Period subjects-- emaciated guitarists, gaunt ascetics, blind beggars, sullen prostitutes, and imprisoned mothers-- this woman appears wholesome and sensuous. The immediacy of her expression, the specificity of her facial features, and the coquettish tilt of her head suggest that Picasso painted this work directly from the model, or perhaps from a quick watercolor sketch from life.

Between 1900 and 1904, Picasso made several trips to Paris, but he would always return home to Spain, where he continued to paint. The period from January 1903 to the spring of 1904 was a prolific time: working in Barcelona, he created numerous drawings and some fifty paintings, including the present one.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.