This is one of several portraits Picasso painted of Fernande Olivier, during the summer of 1909, a period that the couple spent in Picasso's native Spain. While the pears in the background are modeled in the round, Picasso radically reconfigured Oliviers head and bust, fragmenting them into geometrical segments. This fracturing of solid volumes offered an alternative to the traditional illusionistic and perspectival approach to depicting three–dimensional space on a two–dimensional surface and suggests the direction Picasso's process would take in the development of Cubism.
2009.
Provenance Research Project
This work is included in the Provenance Research Project, which investigates the ownership history of works in MoMA's collection.
[Galerie Kahnweiler, Paris and/or Ambroise Vollard, Paris and/or Galerie Thannhauser, Munich]
By September 7, 1919 (1912 or 1913?) - at least October 1932, Alfred Flechtheim and/or Galerie Flechtheim, Düsseldorf, Berlin and London.
By February 1934(?) - March 1937, The Mayor Gallery and/or Douglas Cooper, London.
March 1937, Pierre Matisse Gallery (consignment no. 882, stock no. 594), New York, purchased from “Cooper”.
March 31, 1937 - June 2, 1955, Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., New York, purchased from Pierre Matisse Gallery.
June 2, 1955 - 1996, Florene May Marx (1903-1995, later Schoenborn) and Samuel A. Marx (1948–1964), Chicago, purchased from Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. through M. Knoedler & Co. (consignment no. 4786), New York.
1996, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, acquired as bequest from Florene May Schoenborn.
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