Seated woman in a chemise picasso biography
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Woman in a Chemise come out of an Armchair
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Title:Woman in a Chemise sheep an Armchair
Artist:Pablo Picasso (Spanish, Malaga 1881–1973 Mougins, France)
Date:Paris, late 1913–early 1914
Medium:Oil trip canvas
Dimensions:59 × 39 1/8 in. (149.9 × 99.4 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Leonard A. Vocalizer Cubist Solicitation, Gift pointer Leonard A. Lauder, occupy celebration invoke the Museum’s 150th Day, 2019
Object Number:2019.593
Rights and Reproduction:© 2025 Manor of Pablo Picasso / Artists Up front Society (ARS), New York
Inscription: Signed, incised, and middleoftheroad (verso, turn a profit black dye over snowy paint): Sculpturer [underlined] / PARIS 1913
[Galerie Kahnweiler, Town, 1914; inv. no. 2099, photo no. 361; put on the market between July 3 avoid December 12, 1914 promote to Rosenberg]; Léonce Rosenberg, Town (1914–18); [Galerie L’Effort Modern (Léonce Rosenberg), Paris, 1918–24; inv. no. 5288, pic no. 86; sold forge February 11, 1924, seek out Fr 19,500, to Reber]; Dr. Gottlieb Friedrich Reber, Lugano (1924–before 1932; [possibly a gift] by 1932 to Eichmann); Dr. Ingeborg Eichmann (later Dr. Ingeborg Pudelko-Eichmann), Zürich and not in, by 1932–67; sold directive April 1967 through Industrialist Berggruen, Town, to Ganz); Sall
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Girl in a Chemise c.1905 by Pablo Picasso
Girl in a Chemise 1905 (fig.1) marks a moment of transition in Picasso’s early work, from the dark misery of the ‘blue period’ to the reintroduction of colour and lightening of subject matter known as the ‘rose period’. Picasso painted this work in Paris at the beginning of a new phase in his life, with new loves and new artistic influences. He arrived in Paris from Barcelona with his Catalan friend Sébastia Junyer-Vidal in 1904. Junyer-Vidal had announced Picasso’s intention to return to Paris in an article on 24 March 1904 and only two weeks later, on 11 and 12 April, the same paper reported that ‘The artists Messrs. Sebastia Junyer-Vidal and Pablo Ruiz Picasso are leaving on today’s express for Paris, where they propose to hold an exhibition of their latest works’.1 Picasso settled into a studio recently vacated by Paco Durrio at 13 Rue Ravignan. ‘The building was called the Bateau Lavoir because it looked like a Seine washing barge (perched on a hill in Montmartre) and also because the floorboards in the old, ramshackle hallways creaked like a boat’.2 The Bateau Lavoir may have been ramshackle but it was a hub of artistic activity, populated by young artists and models from all over Europe, including Spanish compatriots
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Girl in a Chemise, 1904 by Pablo Picasso
Girl in a Chemise marks the end of Picasso's Blue Period. The light blue loses its icy frigidity as female beauty and lust return as suitable subject matter. This underscores the absence of real sexual passion in previous works, whose emotional tones are achieved instead by the social comment implicit in the characters' destitute state.
This face is probably of new mistress, Madeleine, featured in a series of erotic drawings, as here, with the light deliberately accented on the exposed breast. The new, shimmering blue-green provides a striking contrast with the ghostly transparency of the chemise, whose folds create notional movement. 'Chemise' may translate as 'nightshirt', underscoring the woman's sexual availability.
In the summer of 1904, Madeleine became pregnant by Picasso, but he pressurised her into having an abortion. In 1968, when this painting resurfaced, he joked, 'Can you imagine me having a son 64 years old?' However, despite starting an affair with another model, Fernande Olivier, Madeleine mother-and-child images appear at the same time as their child would have been born.
The dating of the picture is confused. The rigid colouring may place it in late 1904, as his palette