At Cannes in the summer of 1927, Picasso filled a sketchbook with extraordinary biomorphic, pin-headed figures, both male and female, many with exaggerated genitalia. He soon conceived a set of monumental realizations of his figures, in concrete, to be placed along the fashionable promenade in Cannes called La Croisette. This painting shows how one such figure might have appeared. Although the concrete sculptures were never made, Picasso would soon devote himself to large-scale plaster sculptures in a related style.

Signature: Signed and dated in black and gray paint, lower left: P¦icasso¦ / 29

[Alex Reid and Lefevre, London, 1929, until at least 1936, stock no. 491/29; probably purchased directly from the artist; co-owned for this period in shares with Étienne Bignou, Paris and New York, M. Knoedler & Co., New York, London, Paris, and probably Valentine Dudensing, New York, from 1930]; Aline Barnsdall, Santa Barbara (her estate, 1946–52; sold to Knoedler in March); [M. Knoedler & Co., New York, March–September 1952; sold, probably through Pierre Matisse, New York, for $12,000 to Marx]; Samuel and Florene Marx, Chicago (1952–his d. 1964); Florene May Marx, later Mrs. Wolfgang Schoenborn, New York (1964–d. 1995; on extended loan to The Museum of Modern Art from 1971; on extended loan to MMA from 1980; her bequest to MMA, 1995)

Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, March 12 - May 2, 1993; Brisbane: Queensland Art Gallery, May 21 - July 11, 1993; Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales; July 30 - September 9, 1993, cat. #237, p. 43,

Tokyo, Japan: The Bunkamura Museum of Art, July 4 - September 6, 1998. Nagoya, Japan: The Nagoya City Art Museum, September 15 - November 29, 1998. ¦Pablo Picasso¦. Cat. no. 73, p. 131, illus. in color. p. 30, illus. in b/w.

London, England: Tate Modern, September 20, 2001 - January 1, 2001; New York: The Metopolitan Museum of Art, February 6 - May 12, 2002. ¦Surrealism: Desire Unbound. fig. 267, p. 275 (illus. in color).

Kunsthaus Zürich. "Picasso. His First Museum Exhibition 1932," October 15, 2010–January 30, 2011, no. 64.

New York. Gagosian Gallery, West 21st Street. "L'Amour Fou: Picasso and Marie-Thérèse," April 14–July 15, 2011, unnumbered cat. (p. 113; as "Figure au bord de la mer").

Munich. Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Neue Pinakothek. "Women: Picasso, Beckmann, de Kooning," March 30–July 15, 2012, no. 76 (as "Nude Standing by the Sea [Femme]).

Pablo Picasso. Exh. cat. Nagoya City Art Museum, 1998. pp. 233, 234.

Michael Fitzgerald, with a chronology by Julia May Boddewyn, Picasso and American Art, Whitney Museum of Art, New York, September 28, 2006 - January 28, 2007; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California, February 25 - May 28, 2007; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, June 17 - September 9, 2007, ill. p. 127, fig. 60 (ill. in black and white)