Pablo Picasso

Munich, Haus der Kunst; Cologne, Josef-Haubrich-Kunsthalle; Frankfurt, Städeleschen Kunstinstitut and Zurich, Kunsthaus, Pablo Picasso: Sammlung Marina Picasso, 1981, no. 49, illustrated p. 235
Venice, Palazzo Grassi, Picasso: Opere dal 1895 al 1971 dalla Collezione Marina Picasso, 1981, no. 64, illustrated p. 199
Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria; Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Picasso, 1984, no. 30, illustrated p. 42
Geneva, Galerie Jan Krugier, Picasso: Dessins et aquarelles, 1987
Paris, Musée Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1988, no. 31, illustrated p. 36
Stockholm, Moderna Museet, Pablo Picasso, 1989, no. 149
Jerusalem, The Israel Museum, Picasso the Draughtsman: 103 Works from the Marina Picasso Collection, 1993, no. 12

In the winter of 1905-1906, Picasso was commissioned to paint a portrait of his new  patron and supporter, Gertrude Stein.  During the more than eighty or ninety sittings that she did for him into the spring of 1906, Picasso was so dissatisfied with his progress that he completely painted out Stein's face and decided to take a break from Paris.  Picasso and his mistress, Fernande Olivier, traveled to Gosol in the Spanish Pyrenees.  While there, Picasso’s interest in the archaic sculpture of Osuna intensified.  The raw power and stylized execution of that lapidary tradition made a profound impact on Picasso (fig. 1).  In the fall of 1906, Picasso returned to Paris and finished Gertude Stein’s portrait without any further sittings by her.  The transformation of her face into a mask was a result of his encounter with archaic Iberian sculpture.

In early 1907 Picasso purchased two such sculptures from Apollinaire’s secretary, Géry-Piéret, who, unbeknownst to Picasso, had stolen the statues from the Musée du Louvre.  This purchase came back to haunt Picasso and Apollinaire four years later in what was billed as L’affaire des statuettes, a highly publicized criminal case involving lackadaisical security at the Louvre, the theft of the Mona Lisa along with three Iberian statues and two suspects accused of the involvement in the thefts: Apollinaire and Picasso. 

The stylistic influence of the Iberian statues as well as that of African carving spawned many quasi self-portraits as well as a plethora of nude and figure studies.  Executed in 1907, Têtes de profil is a seminal work from that group of ground-breaking drawings that Picasso developed over the course of several months that culminated in one of the great masterpieces in the history of art, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (Collection, The Museum of Modern Art, New York).  The present work, which remained in Picasso’s possession until his death, is a multiple head study of a medical student visiting a brothel that appeared in the early sketches of Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (figs. 2 and 3, male figure at left).

Fig. 1 Iberian, Two heads, circa 3^rd century, B.C., Musée du Louvre, Paris

Fig. 2  Pablo Picasso, L’etudiant tenant un crane et tête de profil,  1907, pencil on paper

Fig. 3  Pablo Picasso, Étude pour Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907, pastel and pencil on paper, Kunstsammlung Basel