Woman in Green

Pablo Picasso, 1901

Technical Details

About This Work

Executed in 1901 during Pablo Picasso’s formative stay in Madrid, 'Woman in Green' is a striking and atmospheric drawing created with pastel on tan paper board, measuring 51.8 by 36.2 centimeters. Preserved in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the work portrays a female figure adorned in theatrical attire, reflecting the artist’s early fascination with the vibrant yet tawdry world of turn-of-the-century performers. The composition captures a woman dressed to the nines in stylish, inexpensive finery, conveying a complex duality of theatricality and underlying melancholy. Picasso employs expressive pastel strokes and a bold color harmony dominated by deep greens and earthy warm tones of the support board. The direct, unsparing gaze and stark linear contours emphasize the psychological intensity characteristic of the artist's output on the eve of the Blue Period. Through economical draftsmanship and evocative chromatic contrasts, the drawing transforms a transient bohemian subject into an enduring psychological study of early modernist portraiture.

Created in 1901 following Pablo Picasso’s relocation from Barcelona to Madrid after New Year’s Eve, 'Woman in Green' belongs to a significant series of works produced while the artist served as art director for the short-lived literary and artistic publication Arte joven. During this prolific Madrid period, Picasso executed more than a dozen pictures exploring female performers and bohemian figures clad in cheap, flamboyant garments that signaled theatrical or sexual display. This artistic exploration anticipated the stylistic shifts and melancholic introspection that would soon crystallize into his legendary Blue Period, catalyzed further by the tragic death of his friend Carles Casagemas. Acquired by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1961 through the Mr. and Mrs. John L. Loeb Gift, the drawing has been recognized by art historians as an essential bridge connecting Picasso's early Spanish avant-garde experiments with his subsequent Parisian masterpieces. It exemplifies how the young artist absorbed contemporary urban spectacles, transmuting them into profound psychological portraits that laid the groundwork for twentieth-century modernism.

Current Location

Valuation & Provenance

Keywords