Summary
Picasso's Head of a Woman is a small, intimate painting of a female head in a classical, pensive pose. The colour is non-naturalistic and the features of the head summary. No specific sitter is known, and the anonymous title is probably an imposition as Picasso did not usually title his work. He signed and dated the painting 'Picasso 24', in the top right-hand corner, but the stretcher bears the inscription 'February 1925'. This may suggest that he began Head of a Woman at the end of 1924, and this tallies with Christian Zervos's placing of the work in the catalogue raisonné (reproduced Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, 1923-5, V, Paris 1952, p.155, pl.357). Labels on the back indicate that it was exhibited in the first retrospective of Picasso's art at the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris in June 1932, and that at one time it belonged to the British collector Hugh Willoughby… (read more)
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