Most authors trace this figure and pose to antiquity, seeing the youth as a type of kouros: the static, monumental Greek sculptures of athletic young men associated with the cult of Apollo. However, the pose was more likely a memory of Michelangelo (himself deeply inspired by antiquity), whose Dying Slave at the Musée du Louvre fascinated countless artists, including Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse, both of whom were of special interest to Picasso at precisely this moment. Indeed, in the art of Cézanne and Matisse, Picasso found encouragement to explore the expressivity of the nude figure independent of the trappings of everyday life.
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[Galerie Alfred Flechtheim, Berlin, until 1922; sold in July 1922 to Thayer]; Scofield Thayer, Vienna and New York (1922–d. 1982; on extended loan to the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Mass., as part of the Dial Collection, 1939–82, inv. 39.1701; his bequest to MMA)
Worcester Art Museum. "The Art of the Third Republic: French Painting 1870–1940," February 22–March 16, 1941, no. 40.
Princeton University Art Museum. "Loan Exhibition of Picasso Drawings," January 10–31, 1949, no. 3.
Worcester Art Museum. "The Dial and the Dial Collection," April 30–September 8, 1959, no. 197.
Worcester Art Museum. "Selections from the Dial Collection," November 13–30, 1965, unnum. checklist.
Worcester Art Museum. "The Dial Revisited," June 29–August 22, 1971, no catalogue.
Worcester Art Museum. "'The Dial': Arts and Letters in the 1920s," March 7–May 10, 1981, no. 115.
Barcelona. Museu Picasso. "Picasso, 1905–1906: From the Rose Period to the Ochres of Gósol," February 5–April 19, 1992, no. 138.
Kunstmuseum Bern. "Picasso, 1905–1906: From the Rose Period to the Ochres of Gósol," May 8–June 26, 1992, no. 138.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Nudes: A Selection from the Bequest of Scofield Thayer," February 12–October 31, 1993, no catalogue.
New York Studio School. "Image and Eye: The Art of Goya and Picasso," October 24–November 11, 1995, unnumbered cat.
Paris. Musée Picasso. "Picasso 1901–1909: Chefs d'oeuvre du Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York," October 21, 1998–January 25, 1999, unnumbered cat. (fig.12).
Madrid. Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. "Forma: El Ideal Clásico en el Arte Moderno," October 9, 2001–January 13, 2002, no. 16.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," April 27–August 1, 2010, no. 31.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art [The Met Breuer]. "Obsession: Nudes by Klimt, Schiele and Picasso from the Scofield Thayer Collection," July 3–October 7, 2018, no. 42.
Christian Zervos. Pablo Picasso. Vol. 6, Supplément aux volumes 1 à 5. Paris, 1954, p. 80, no. 660, ill.
Josep Palau i Fabre. Picasso: The Early Years, 1881–1907. New York, 1981, pp. 447, 550, no. 1240, ill.
Michel Hoog. Musée de l'Orangerie. Catalogue de la collection Jean Walter et Paul Guillaume. Paris, 1984, p. 154.
John Richardson with the collaboration of Marilyn McCully. A Life of Picasso. Vol. 1, 1881–1906. New York, 1991, p. 442, ill.
Marilyn McCully inPicasso clasico. Ed. Gary Tinterow. Exh. cat., Palacio Episcopal. Málaga, 1992, pp. 84, 86, fig. 10.
Marilyn McCully, ed. Picasso: The Early Years, 1892-1906. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. Washington, D.C., 1997, pp. 272, 275 n. 42.
Gary Tinterow inPicasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Gary Tinterow and Susan Alyson Stein. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2010, pp. 10, 92–94, no. 31, ill. (color).
Rachel Mustalish inPicasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Gary Tinterow and Susan Alyson Stein. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2010, p. 94.
Sabine Rewald inObsession: Nudes by Klimt, Schiele and Picasso from the Scofield Thayer Collection. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art [The Met Breuer]. New York, 2018, pp. 89, 127, no. 42, ill. p. 104 (color).
Eugenio Carmona inPicasso 1906: The Turning Point. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Madrid, 2024, p. 37.
Pablo Salazar inPicasso 1906: The Turning Point. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Madrid, 2024, p. 76, no. 27.
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, Malaga 1881–1973 Mougins, France)
1915
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