Picasso, Pablo (1881-1973)
Femme au chapeau noir (Woman in a Black Hat)
1909
Oil on canvas, 73 x 60.3 cm
Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo
Artist and model Fernande Olivier (1881–1966) is the subject of this early Cubist portrait by Pablo Picasso. Wearing a bold feathered hat and seated in a high-backed chair, she rests her chin on her hand. The two met in 1904 upon Picasso’s move to Paris from Barcelona and were soon living together. Olivier, who had worked as an artist’s model for several years, became a frequent subject of Picasso’s early works. Later in life Olivier published memoirs of her stormy relationship with Picasso, despite his protests. Picasso’s early Cubist explorations show the ability of the style to question the possibilities and meanings of visual representation. He overlapped geometric planes and multiple points of view rather than using traditional perspective. His color palette became severely limited as he sought to treat subject and background with equal emphasis. The process of fragmenting and recombining visual components became known as Analytic Cubism. (TAM)