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MoMA One on One Series
Picasso: Girl Before a Mirror
Girl before a Mirror (1932), one the most extraordinary works among MoMA's vast collection of Pablo Picasso's paintings and sculptures, takes the traditional artistic theme of a woman before her mirror and reinvents it in radically modern terms. The girl's profile and blonde hair identify her as Marie-Thérèse Walter, the artist's lover, muse, and a profoundly transformative presence in both his life and art, but the painting is far from a conventional portrait. Its dazzling jewel-like colors, boldly contoured shapes, and surface patterning transform the girl and her shadowy reflection into an image both captivating and strange.
In this volume of the One on One series, an essay by curator Anne Umland explores the painting in depth and describes the circumstances of its creation: the artist's private life, his practice as a sculptor, his rivalry with other artists both living and dead, and his concern, at age fifty-one, about his contemporary relevance and artistic legacy.
In this volume of the One on One series, an essay by curator Anne Umland explores the painting in depth and describes the circumstances of its creation: the artist's private life, his practice as a sculptor, his rivalry with other artists both living and dead, and his concern, at age fifty-one, about his contemporary relevance and artistic legacy.
48 pages, Paperback
First published July 31, 2012
12 people want to read
About the author
Pablo Picasso
995 books964 followersPablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) and the anti-war painting Guernica (1937), a dramatic portrayal of the bombing of Guernica by German and Italian air forces during the Spanish Civil War.
Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years, painting in a naturalistic manner through his childhood and adolescence. During the first decade of the 20th century, his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas. After 1906, the Fauvist work of the older artist Henri Matisse motivated Picasso to explore more radical styles, beginning a fruitful rivalry between the two artists, who subsequently were often paired by critics as the leaders of modern art.
Picasso's output, especially in his early career, is often periodized. While the names of many of his later periods are debated, the most commonly accepted periods in his work are the Blue Period (1901–1904), the Rose Period (1904–1906), the African-influenced Period (1907–1909), Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), and Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919), also referred to as the Crystal period. Much of Picasso's work of the late 1910s and early 1920s is in a neoclassical style, and his work in the mid-1920s often has characteristics of Surrealism. His later work often combines elements of his earlier styles.
Exceptionally prolific throughout the course of his long life, Picasso achieved universal renown and immense fortune for his revolutionary artistic accomplishments, and became one of the best-known figures in 20th-century art.
Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years, painting in a naturalistic manner through his childhood and adolescence. During the first decade of the 20th century, his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas. After 1906, the Fauvist work of the older artist Henri Matisse motivated Picasso to explore more radical styles, beginning a fruitful rivalry between the two artists, who subsequently were often paired by critics as the leaders of modern art.
Picasso's output, especially in his early career, is often periodized. While the names of many of his later periods are debated, the most commonly accepted periods in his work are the Blue Period (1901–1904), the Rose Period (1904–1906), the African-influenced Period (1907–1909), Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), and Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919), also referred to as the Crystal period. Much of Picasso's work of the late 1910s and early 1920s is in a neoclassical style, and his work in the mid-1920s often has characteristics of Surrealism. His later work often combines elements of his earlier styles.
Exceptionally prolific throughout the course of his long life, Picasso achieved universal renown and immense fortune for his revolutionary artistic accomplishments, and became one of the best-known figures in 20th-century art.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 27, 2019
I like the painting. I like the commentary on the painting. I'm disappointed to learn that the painting is a result of Picasso creeping on a teenager even though he was married with a kid. What a creep.
January 8, 2025
No complaints.
(I think more could have been said about the fact that Walter is clearly pregnant in the painting though)
(I think more could have been said about the fact that Walter is clearly pregnant in the painting though)
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews