Woman in Profile

Pablo Picassos Woman in Profile from around 1904 is a pen and brown ink and watercolor drawing with blotting on cream laid paper that dates from the final year of the artists Blue Period, when he was transitioning from the monochromatic melancholy of the Blue Period to the warmer tonality and circus subjects of the Rose Period. The woman, depicted in profile with the elongated proportions and simplified features that characterize Picassos figural style of this period, exemplifies the combination of linear elegance and tonal subtlety that distinguishes his best works on paper. The watercolor medium, applied in thin washes that allow the cream laid paper to show through, creates the muted tonality of the late Blue Period while the blotting visible on the surface records the spontaneous working process of an artist who made decisions quickly and trusted the medium to produce effects that could not be entirely controlled. The year 1904 was the year Picasso moved permanently to Paris and began to establish himself as a significant figure in the French art world, and the Woman in Profile reveals an artist who had absorbed the lessons of Toulouse-Lautrec, Steinlen, and the Nabis and was beginning to develop the personal style that would lead to Les Demoiselles d'Avignon three years later. The pen and brown ink provides the Linear definition of the profile while the watercolor washes create the tonal atmosphere that gives the figure its melancholy presence.

Picassos Blue Period works on paper are among the most celebrated works of his early career, and their influence on the development of modern drawing extends from the Fauves to the Expressionists. Woman in Profile exemplifies the combination of linear elegance and tonal atmosphere that distinguishes his works on paper from this period.

A watercolor and pen and ink drawing by Picasso from around 1904 of a woman in profile, dating from the final year of the Blue Period with muted tonality and blotting that records the spontaneous working process of an artist transitioning to the Rose Period.