On View
Pablo Picasso
Seated Woman with a Book (Femme assise au livre)
Pablo Picasso
Spanish, 1881-1973
Seated Woman with a Book (Femme assise au livre), ca. 1910
Oil on canvas
41.3 x 24.1 cm (16 1/4 x 9 1/2 inches)
Museum Works of Art Fund 51.094
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Modern and Contemporary Galleries
Picasso was an originator of Cubism, an artistic style whose name derived from a comment made by a French critic about the “little cubes” that comprised a painting shown by Georges Braque in 1908. Proponents of Cubism utilized a variety of techniques that included faceting of mass, erasure of contour, layering of flattened shapes, and the use of geometric components in the construction of forms. Their subjects were often presented as if simultaneously viewed from multiple vantage points. In Seated Woman with a Book, Picasso created a fluid structure in which passages of tonal modeling shift through armatures of angled lines. Integrating the figure into the space she occupied, he built a rhythmic scaffold in which clues to the woman’s physical identity are embedded. Ambiguous hieroglyphics suggest her breasts, her crossed legs, the book in her lap, and the chair on which she sits. At left, the shift of palette from gray-brown to a soft blue suggests that the figure is seated before an open window. Like many Cubist paintings of this period, it abstracts forms from everyday life and presents them as conceived in the artist’s imagination.
European Galleries
In Picasso’s early Cubist paintings, subjects were often fragmented and presented from multiple points of view. Here he transforms a female figure into a rhythmic scaffold in which tonal modeling shifts through armatures of angled lines. Clues to her pose and physical identity appear in the ambiguous hieroglyphics that suggest her breasts and the references to her crossed legs, the book in her lap, and the chair on which she is perched. The subtle shift of palette from gray-brown to a soft blue suggests that the model is seated before an open window looking out on the sea.
Celebrating the Jewish Contribution to Twentieth-Century American Art
(November 12, 2004 – March 5, 2005) -
European Paintings and Sculpture, ca. 1770 - 1937
Edited By
Slimmon, Ann H, and Judith A. Singsen, eds.Contributions by
Rosenfeld, Daniel, et alPublisher & Date
Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 1991Type
Monographs and CollectionsSelected WorksEdited By
Woolsey, Ann, ed.Publisher & Date
Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 2008Type
Monographs and CollectionsA Handbook of the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of DesignEdited By
Woodward, Carla M., and Franklin W. Robinson, eds.Publisher & Date
Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 1988Type
Monographs and CollectionsExchange Exhibition, Exhibition ExchangeFrom the Collection of Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University; From the Collection of The Museum of Art, RhodeContributions by
Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design.Publisher & Date
Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design. Waltham, MA: Rose Art Museum, Brandesi University., 1967Type
Exhibition Catalogue
