Image: MoMA / Public Domain
View source →Woman Dressing Her Hair
Pablo Picasso, 1940
Technical Details
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
130.1 × 97.1 cm (51.2 × 38.2 in)
Style
Cubism / Expressionism
Decade
1940s
About This Work
Woman Dressing Her Hair depicts a monumental female figure seated in a chair, her arms raised above her head as she arranges her hair. The figure is rendered in Picasso's most extreme Cubist-Expressionist style — the body distorted and fragmented, the face a mask of angular planes. Despite the violence of the distortion, the painting retains a quality of domestic intimacy that makes it one of the most compelling of the wartime works.
Painted in June 1940 — the month of the German occupation of Paris — Woman Dressing Her Hair is widely interpreted as a response to the trauma of the occupation. Picasso remained in Paris throughout the war, and many of his wartime paintings can be read as allegories of the suffering of the French people.
Current Location
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, USA
Public Collection — Open to visitors
Visit museum website →Valuation & Provenance
2026 Estimated Value
$80–120 million (est.)
* Estimates are based on comparable auction results and market analysis. Not a formal appraisal.
Last Known Sale
No public auction record — held in permanent museum collection
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