Studio with Plaster Head

This work is included in the Provenance Research Project, which investigates the ownership history of works in MoMA's collection.

Galerie Paul Rosenberg, Paris, by June 1926 [1]; purchased by Gottlieb Friedrich Reber (1880-1959), Lugano /Lausanne, 1926 [2], in his possession until at least 1932 [2]. [A. M. Bellanger, by 1937] [3]. Sold to James Johnson Sweeney (1900-1986), New York/Houston, by 1939 [4]; acquired by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, February 1964.

[1] Included in exhibition Exposition d'oeuvres récentes de Picasso, June-July 1926, no. 43 (Nature morte à la tête de plâtre).
[2] See Carl Einstein, Die Kunst des XX. Jahrhunderts, Berlin : Propyläen-Verlag, 1926, p. 295. List of plates, p. 560: "Komposition. 1925. Lugano, Sammlung Reber." On loan from Reber to the following exhibitions: Masterpieces by 20th Century French Painters: 'L'Ecole de Paris, London, Alex Reid and Lefevre, London, January-February 1932, no. 15 (L'Atelier); Picasso, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, June 16-July 30, 1932, no. 160 (L'Atelier); Picasso, Kunsthaus Zurich, September 11-October 30, 1932, no. 158 (Das Atelier).
[3] Jean Sutherland Boggs, with Marie-Laure Bernadac and Brigitte Léal, eds., Picasso and Things, exh. cat. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1992, pp. 218-219, no. 86.
[4] On loan from Sweeney to the exhibition Picasso: Forty Years of His Art, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, November 15, 1939-January 7, 1940, no. 192. See Dorothy Kosinski, "G. F. Reber: Collector of Cubism," Burlington Magazine (August 1991), p. 531 (Still Life with Plaster Head).

If you have any questions or information to provide about the listed works, please email provenance@moma.org or write to:

Provenance Research Project
The Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53 Street
New York, NY 10019