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©Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Woman Seated in a Chair
1941oil on canvas
51 in. x 38 in. (129.54 cm x 96.52 cm)
Anonymous Gift, 1953.3
Pablo Picasso
Spanish
1881–1973
ON VIEW
Description
Pablo Picasso’s oil painting Woman Seated in a Chair depicts the distorted, geometricized form of a female figure placed in front of (or overlapping) a yellow wooden slat chair. The woman has black hair and is wearing a blue dress with a pattern of white circles and red trim. The background is composed of large geometric fields of vivid colors (red, green, blue, purple, yellow, orange, white) organized in a coherent, yet abstract pattern.
Context and Analysis
Picasso recorded his wives and mistresses in numerous series of images, each reflective of his stylistic period of the time. The model for Woman Seated in a Chair, created in 1941, was photographer and painter Dora Maar (1907–1997), with whom he had begun a volatile liaison in the 1930s. Picasso rendered Maar’s features in his late Cubist style, characterized by the geometricizing of form and space, intense emotion, and the use of bright color. Picasso had begun his investigations into Cubism many years earlier, in 1907, creating highly intellectualized works in muted tones.
Picasso was living in Paris when he painted this portrait, during the Nazi occupation of the city in World War II. The artist had taken refuge in a small studio apartment on the Rue des Grands-Augustins. Picasso had expressed his rage and sorrow over the ravages of war most notably in his Guernica (Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid) of 1937. Those emotions, along with the frustration of his claustrophobic living conditions, undoubtedly contributed to the aggressive fragmentation of the composition of Woman Seated in a Chair and the mutilation of Maar’s body and face. Freed through his aesthetic style from the requirement to faithfully record appearances, Picasso’s painting becomes an attempt to grapple with an increasingly unstable relationship and the psychological trauma of his imploding world.
The artist’s manipulation of paint and surface can be seen in the scratches and incisions at the right and the thick daubs of paint on the upper left side of the canvas. This creates a tension with the apparent two-dimensionality of Picasso’s art from this period. Another element of tension is the patterning of the woman’s dress; it is a pointed reference to the decorative female figures of Henri Matisse (1869–1954), who both fascinated and infuriated Picasso at this time. 1
Connections
The Currier Museum owns several works by Picasso, in a range of mediums and illustrative of his various stylistic periods (Currier, 299 , 2008.4.5 , 1970.28,2005.20, 2008.4.6, 2008.4.7, 2008.4.8, 2008.4.9, 2008.4.10).
Picasso’s impassioned allusions to wartime Europe may be compared with the more directly referential works of Käthe Kollwitz, also in the museum’s collection (Currier, 339). The bold colors and fragmented style of Picasso’s late Cubist period influenced many artists, who transformed these qualities to express their own personal and political needs (Currier, 1986.43).
Written by Emily M. Weeks, Ph.D.
Pablo Picasso’s oil painting Woman Seated in a Chair depicts the distorted, geometricized form of a female figure placed in front of (or overlapping) a yellow wooden slat chair. The woman has black hair and is wearing a blue dress with a pattern of white circles and red trim. The background is composed of large geometric fields of vivid colors (red, green, blue, purple, yellow, orange, white) organized in a coherent, yet abstract pattern.
Context and Analysis
Picasso recorded his wives and mistresses in numerous series of images, each reflective of his stylistic period of the time. The model for Woman Seated in a Chair, created in 1941, was photographer and painter Dora Maar (1907–1997), with whom he had begun a volatile liaison in the 1930s. Picasso rendered Maar’s features in his late Cubist style, characterized by the geometricizing of form and space, intense emotion, and the use of bright color. Picasso had begun his investigations into Cubism many years earlier, in 1907, creating highly intellectualized works in muted tones.
Picasso was living in Paris when he painted this portrait, during the Nazi occupation of the city in World War II. The artist had taken refuge in a small studio apartment on the Rue des Grands-Augustins. Picasso had expressed his rage and sorrow over the ravages of war most notably in his Guernica (Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid) of 1937. Those emotions, along with the frustration of his claustrophobic living conditions, undoubtedly contributed to the aggressive fragmentation of the composition of Woman Seated in a Chair and the mutilation of Maar’s body and face. Freed through his aesthetic style from the requirement to faithfully record appearances, Picasso’s painting becomes an attempt to grapple with an increasingly unstable relationship and the psychological trauma of his imploding world.
The artist’s manipulation of paint and surface can be seen in the scratches and incisions at the right and the thick daubs of paint on the upper left side of the canvas. This creates a tension with the apparent two-dimensionality of Picasso’s art from this period. Another element of tension is the patterning of the woman’s dress; it is a pointed reference to the decorative female figures of Henri Matisse (1869–1954), who both fascinated and infuriated Picasso at this time. 1
Connections
The Currier Museum owns several works by Picasso, in a range of mediums and illustrative of his various stylistic periods (Currier, 299 , 2008.4.5 , 1970.28,2005.20, 2008.4.6, 2008.4.7, 2008.4.8, 2008.4.9, 2008.4.10).
Picasso’s impassioned allusions to wartime Europe may be compared with the more directly referential works of Käthe Kollwitz, also in the museum’s collection (Currier, 339). The bold colors and fragmented style of Picasso’s late Cubist period influenced many artists, who transformed these qualities to express their own personal and political needs (Currier, 1986.43).
Written by Emily M. Weeks, Ph.D.
Exhibition
1946 Gallerie Louis Carre, Paris, France, "Dix-neuf pientures de Picasso." June 14 - July 14, no. 6. 1948 Samuel Kootz Gallery, New York, NY, "The First World Showing of Paintings of 1947 by Picasso." Jan. 26 - Feb. 14, no. 14.
1954 Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA, "Variations -- Three Centuries of Painting." Jan. 8 - Feb. 15, no. 27.
1955 San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA, "Art in the 20th Century -- Commemorating the 10th Anniversary of the Signing of the United Nations Charter." June 17 - July 10.
1962 Seattle's World's Fair, Seattle, WA, "Masterpieces of Art." April 21 - Sept. 4.
1964 "Picasso and Man." Organized by Art Gallery of Toronto. Traveled to: Art gallery of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Jan. 11 - Feb. 16; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Quebec, Feb. 28 - Mar. 31.
1968 University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, "Four Centuries of Spanish Art." Feb. 8 - 29.
1970 Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR, "Picasso for Porland." Sept. 21 - Oct. 25.
1972 Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, "Painting, Sculpture and Decorative Arts from the Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire." May 14 - June 20.
1979 Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA, "Small Gallery on a Large Scale." June 16 - July 29.
1986 Bowdoin College Art Museum, Brunswick, ME, "Masterpieces from the Currier Gallery of Art." Sept. 11 - Nov. 2.
1999 Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX, "Matisse and Picasso: A Gentle Rivalry." Feb. 2 - May 2.
2006-2007 Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME, "Masterpieces from the Currier Museum of Art." Sept. 2006 - March 2007.
2007 Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, Extended Loan of European and American Paintings. April - Nov.
2023 - 2024 Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH. "Toward the New: A Journey Into Abstraction." November 16 - March 31, 2024.
Provenance
Louis Carre Samuel Kootz
Anonymous Gift to the Currier Gallery of Art through M. Knoedler & Co., NY, 1950-1
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