This drawing of a muscular, kneeling nude is a study for the leftmost figure in Picasso’s large painting Three Women (1907–8; The State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg), an important work in the artist’s development of Cubism. Here, the torso, raised arm, and head are broken into planar, interlocking forms. Picasso’s ongoing interest in African art is apparent in the figure’s masklike face and in his treatment of the body, which appears almost carved or hewn from wood with its angled facets and hatched lines.
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Inscription: Signed (lower right, in brown ink): Picasso
the artist, Paris (until at least 1935); [Yvonne Zervos, Paris, by 1942]; [Berggruen et Cie, Paris]; [Curt Valentin, New York]; Nelson A. Rockefeller, New York (by 1957–78; sold on January 8, 1978, through Harold Diamond, New York, to Gelman); Jacques and Natasha Gelman, Mexico City and New York (1978–his d. 1986); Natasha Gelman, Mexico City and New York (1986–d. 1998; her bequest to MMA)
Museum of Modern Art, New York. "Picasso: 75th Anniversary Exhibition," May 4–September 8, 1957, unnumbered cat. (p. 36).
Art Institute of Chicago. "Picasso: 75th Anniversary Exhibition," October 29–December 8, 1957, unnumbered cat.
Philadelphia Museum of Art. "Picasso: A Loan Exhibition of His Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture, Ceramics, Prints and Illustrated Books," January 8–February 23, 1958, no. 47.
New York. Museum of Modern Art. "Twentieth-Century Art from the Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller Collection," May 26–September 1, 1969, unnumbered cat. (p. 134).
New York. Museum of Modern Art. "Pablo Picasso: A Retrospective," May 22–September 16, 1980, unnumbered cat. (p. 114).
New York. Museum of Modern Art. "Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism," September 24, 1989–January 16, 1990, unnumbered cat. (p. 86).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Twentieth-Century Modern Masters: The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection," December 12, 1989–April 1, 1990, unnumbered cat. (p. 105).
London. Royal Academy of Arts. "Twentieth-Century Modern Masters: The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection," April 19–July 15, 1990, unnumbered cat.
Martigny. Fondation Pierre Gianadda. "De Matisse à Picasso: Collection Jacques et Natasha Gelman," June 18–November 1, 1994, unnumbered cat. (p. 129).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," April 27–August 1, 2010, no. 43.
New York. Acquavella Galleries. "Picasso: Seven Decades of Drawing," October 7–December 3, 2021, unnumbered cat. (pl. 13; as "Nu à genoux [Kneeling Nude]").
Christian Zervos. Pablo Picasso. Vol. 2b, Works from 1912 to 1917. Paris, 1942, p. 311, no. 707, ill.
Jean Leymarie. Picasso Drawings. Geneva, 1967, pp. 34, 105, ill.
Franco Russoli and Fiorella Minervino. L'opera completa di Picasso cubista. Milan, 1972, pp. 96–97, no. 189, ill.
Jean-Luc Daval. Journal de l'art moderne, 1884–1914: texte, notices explicatives, déroulement synoptique à travers le témoignage des contemporains. Geneva, 1973, p. 202, ill.
Leo Steinberg. "Resisting Cézanne: Picasso's 'Three Women'." Art in America 66 (November–December 1978), pp. 120, 122, ill. [reprinted in Ref. Combalía 1981 and "Cubist Picasso," Paris 2007–8].
Ulrich Weisner et al. Zeichnungen und Collagen des Kubismus: Picasso, Braque, Gris. Exh. cat., Kunsthalle Bielefeld. Bielefeld, 1979, p. 266, pl. 26.
Susan Mayer. "Ancient Mediterranean Sources in the Works of Picasso, 1892–1937." PhD diss., New York University, 1980, p. 242, fig. 29.
Pablo Picasso. Tokyo, 1981, p. 107, ill.
Victoria Combalía Dexeus, ed. Estudios sobre Picasso. Barcelona and Madrid, 1981, p. 59, fig. 23.
William S. Lieberman. The Nelson A. Rockefeller Collection: Masterpieces of Modern Art. Ed. Dorothy Canning Miller. New York, 1981, pp. 8, 73, ill.
Pierre Daix. Cubists and Cubism. Geneva, 1982, pp. 44, 169, ill.
Olle Granath et al., ed. Pablo Picasso. Exh. cat., Moderna Museet. Stockholm, 1988, pp. 140, 221, fig. 18.
Anatoli Podoksik. Picasso: La Quête perpétuelle. Paris, 1989, p. 168, fig. 289.
Pepe Karmel. "Appendix 2: Notes on the Dating of Works." Picasso and Braque: A Symposium. Ed. Lynn Zelevansky. New York, 1992, p. 323.
Carsten-Peter Warncke. Pablo Picasso, 1881–1973. Ed. Ingo F. Walther. Vol. 1, The Works 1890–1936. Cologne, 1992, p. 160, ill.
Joseph Low (Pepe) Karmel. "Picasso's Laboratory: The Role of his Drawings in the Development of Cubism, 1910–14." PhD diss., Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 1993, vol. 1, p. 31; vol. 3, pp. 367–68; vol. 4, fig. 9.
Andrew Decker. "Metropolitan: Une Exceptionnelle donation." Beaux Arts no. 170 (July 1998), p. 24.
Kathryn A. Tuma inPicasso: The Cubist Portraits of Fernande Olivier. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C. and Princeton, 2003, pp. 148, 150, fig. 12.
Julia May Boddewyn in Michael FitzGerald. Picasso and American Art. Exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, 2006, p. 375.
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, p. 13, fig. 16 (color, installation photo, Gelman apartment, 1989).
Sabine Rewald 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. 124–25, no. 43, 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. 126.
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, Malaga 1881–1973 Mougins, France)
1929
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