Image: Artwork image rights managed by holding institution; source link provided
View source →Head of a Man with a Hat
Pablo Picasso, 1912
Technical Details
Medium
Cut-and-pasted newspaper and colored paper, ink, and charcoal on paper
Dimensions
62.2 × 47.3 cm (24.5 × 18.6 in)
Style
Collage
Decade
1910s
About This Work
A male head and hat emerge from fragments of newspaper, colored paper, ink, and charcoal. Picasso does not conceal the collage process; the cut edges and printed text help construct the face rather than merely decorate it. The work makes identity provisional: the sitter is assembled from signs, textures, and shifting planes. It turns a traditional head study into a meditation on how an image can be both recognizable and materially fragmented.
MoMA dates Head of a Man with a Hat to 1912 and identifies it as a work on paper acquired from Tristan Tzara in 1937. Its mixed materials place it at the heart of Picasso’s Synthetic Cubist turn, when pasted elements brought the visual language of newspapers and advertising into high art. The work’s significance lies in that collision between representation and literal material. A human head becomes an arrangement of signs, showing how collage could recast portraiture as a constructed experience.
Current Location
Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
Public Collection — Open to visitors
Visit museum website →Collection record status
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Source-linked entry contains a provenance or acquisition statement; full ownership-chain claims remain limited to the cited institution.
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Valuation & Provenance
2026 Estimated Value
Public collection / market value not asserted
* 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
Keywords
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