Fernande Olivier (1881–1966), Picasso’s first mistress, was completely absorbed into the artist’s practices, establishing the standard for how his lovers would pervade his portraiture over the course of his eight-decade career. Olivier’s relationship with Picasso coincided with the artist’s exploration of a proto-primitive style that would lead him to his first decisive steps toward Cubism. These two busts of Olivier were modeled during that shift, and the difference between the two exemplifies the artist’s remarkable transition period. In the earlier work, Olivier’s head is simplified, reduced. Her hair is fixed to her head and neck, almost an afterthought to the strong jaw, thick neck and solid features that Picasso had admired in the early medieval sculpture of his native northwest Spain and imposed here. Three years later, the artist was drawing from primitive art, both Iberian and African, and was beginning his dialogue with the spatial implications that informed early Cubism. In his Head of Fernande from 1909, he inflicted Olivier’s visage with a series of planes, effectively dividing her head, face and neck into dozens of segments.
Details
- Artist Name: Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973)
- Title: Head of Fernande
- Date: 1906; cast ca. 1959
- Medium: Bronze
- Edition: Edition of 9, Cast No. 7
- Dimensions: 14 x 9-7/8 x 10-1/2 in. (35.6 x 25.1 x 26.7 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Art Foundation
- Accession Number: M.1968.36.S
- Copyright: © Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Object Information
G. David Thompson (1899–1965), Pittsburgh.
Private Collection;
[Stephen Hahn Gallery, New York, sold October 31, 1968 to];
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
[on loan]
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1969-08-28 to 1971-02-16
La Femme
- Galerie Beyeler, 1960-05 to 1960-06
[on loan]
- Milan, Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna, 1961-10 to 1961-11
Recent Acquisitions by the Norton Simon, Inc. Museum of Art
- Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1968-02-24 to
[on loan]
- Zurich, Kunsthaus, 1960-10 to 1960-11
Picasso in the Sixties
- Norton Simon Museum, 1996-01-18 to 1996-04-28
Seven Decades of Picasso
- Norton Simon Museum, 1979-10-11 to 1980
Picassos in Southern California: A Tribute to the Artist at 90
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1971-10-25 to 1971-11-21
The World of Picasso
- Norton Simon Museum, 1994-03-24 to 1994-11-06
Francisco de Goya's 'Los Caprichos'
- Norton Simon Museum, 1987-02-19 to 1987-07-19
Selections from the Norton Simon, Inc. Museum of Art
- Princeton University Art Museum, 1972-12-03 to 1974-07-17
Portraits by Picasso: Images of Friends, Lovers and Mentors
- Norton Simon Museum, 1987-07-23 to 1988-05-22
Gaze: Portraiture After Ingres
- Norton Simon Museum, 2009-10-30 to 2010-04-05
Reinstallation of South Wing
- Norton Simon Museum, 1993-10-07 to 1995-08-13
- Zervos, Christian, Pablo Picasso,
- Galerie Beyeler, La Femme, 1960, no. 60
- Tate Gallery, Picasso: Sculpture, Ceramics, Graphic Works, 1967, p. 28
- Penrose, Roland, The Sculpture of Picasso, 1967, p. 53
- Steadman, David W., Selections from the Norton Simon, Inc. Museum of Art, 1972, p. 229
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best, 2010, cat. 543 p. 310
Additional Artwork by Artist
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