i-Map

Pablo Picasso, Woman, 1961

Sheet Metal, © Succession Picasso/DACS 2002. Private Collection.

Text Version

The text only version is intended to be used in conjunction with i-Map's raised drawings. Click here to download the drawings.

Orientation
This small sculpture of a woman is made from a single sheet of thin, smooth metal, roughly the size of an A4 sheet of paper.

Raised Image 1
This raised drawing represents the outline of the sculpture as if it were flattened out again into a sheet of metal. Beginning near the bottom of the page you will feel a heavy black horizontal line. This is the bottom edge of the sculpture. The two vertical sides rise up from this base in straight lines before coming in towards each other at the shoulder and neck area, then opening out once more for the head that is shaped like an irregular dogleg. Down the centre of this outline are two vertical dotted lines. These indicate where the sculpture is folded. End of Raised Image Description

It has been bent along two vertical seams to form three tall thin facets of roughly equal width. The angle of each fold at slightly more than ninety degrees, so although the sculpture is welded onto a flat metal base, it gives the impression of being able to stand up unaided. If you imagine looking at the sculpture from the 'outside', i.e. with the facets bent away from you, then the right hand facet is shorter than the other two and is un-worked, so it seems to function simply as a stabiliser to keep the sculpture upright. The left hand and centre facets have had pieces cut out so that we can see through the sculpture. These holes define the woman's features which have been simplified into almost cartoon-like shapes. At the top are two eyes with eyebrows, two nostrils and an ear. Below, there is a thin central 'neck' of metal and the body which is defined by two arms, one solid metal and one cut away, with a hole in between that might represent a breast or a heart. The figure's body ends at the waist and the fold in the sheet metal that defines the left from the centre facet acts like a spine between the two sides of the figure's body. Both the sculpture and its base are made of the same tarnished, matt grey metal. End of Orientation

This sculpture was one of many Picasso made during the early sixties after the death of Matisse. Picasso would first create models in cut and folded card or paper. These would be then be taken to a factory and translated into metal by Picasso's collaborator, Lionel Prejger. Picasso had a lifelong enjoyment of working with paper as a medium. As a child he had been accomplished at making paper silhouettes. Later, paper would be used to revolutionary effect in his Cubist collages and papier colles as a way of bridging the gap between real life and art, and blurring the distinction between sculpture and painting. During this period Picasso also first experimented with cut metal sculptures. In 1924 he made a still life of a guitar from painted sheet metal. It was designed to be hung on the wall and so combined the qualities of both painting and a relief sculpture in one work. Thirty years later his interest in these techniques would be revived from seeing the vibrant painted paper cut outs developed by Matisse towards the end of his life. Matisse would often play with positive and negative space in these works. For instance he would cut out the figure of a female nude from a single sheet of painted paper. But the finished work would be the negative space left behind in the sheet, the ghost of the figure, rather than the positive space, the solid image that he'd cut out.

Like Matisse's cut outs, Picasso's sheet metal sculptures invite the viewer to retrace the process used to create them. With 'Woman' one can easily envisage the size of the original rectangle of paper or card from which Picasso cut the model for the finished metal sculpture. One can imagine Picasso first cutting the outline of the whole sculpture before removing the various shapes that define the woman's features.

Raised Image 2
This drawing depicts just the head of the woman - the dogleg shape from the previous raised image. The raised area of the drawing represents the sheet metal, while the non-raised areas represent the holes cut out of the sculpture. If you follow the outline edge of the left hand side of the woman's face, you will feel it is very geometric. The side of her head from the crown to the end of the nose is a straight vertical line. This then turns in at ninety degrees underneath the nose before turning again to create a straight line that travels from under the nose to the bottom of the neck. It then slopes away to form the top of the shoulder. Immediately above the horizontal line under the nose are two holes. These are nostrils. Above this are two arc shapes that surround a circular hole. This is the eye socket and eye ball. Above the eye is a straight line which is the eyebrow. To the right of this eyebrow and on the same level is another linear hole, this is the other eyebrow and below it the second eye and to the right of this a much smaller hole next to another smaller arc. This is the ear. Below the ear is a big hole in the raised area. This is the cheek. The right hand edge of the cheek is a soft curve, but the left hand edge is jagged. This is an exaggerated profile of lips and a chin. If you trace the outline edge of the right side of the head, you will notice at the bottom a block-like form. This is the top of the far right blank facet of the sculpture which when bent, physically stabilises the piece. End of Raised Image Description

However, Picasso switches between using positive space, (the solid sheet) and negative space, (the holes) to create the woman's features. For instance, within the outline of the woman's head and neck, her face has a large kidney-shaped hole cut out from the centre facet, roughly where the cheek would be. However, the large cheek-like hole can be read two ways. Either it describes the empty space around the figure's head so that the jagged edge left behind on the metal neck becomes the figure's lips and chin seen in profile. Alternatively, the hole should be read as positive space, representing the solid flesh of a cheek, in which case the profile of the lips and chin 'belong' to the hole, not the metal sheet.

The reason for this ambiguity is explained by the way Picasso has defined the other very simplified facial features. As we look at the sculpture, the left hand eye is described by a horizontal line for the eyebrow, an arc for the top of the eye socket, a circle for the eyeball and, below it, another arc for the bottom of the eye socket. We therefore seem to be looking at this eye straight on. However, the eye on the right appears to be in profile because although the eyebrow is similar, the eyeball is a half moon shape and the socket shaped like a V on its side, indicating that we are seeing this eye in profile. This impression is further confirmed by the fact that below the left eye are two nostrils, while to the right of the other eye is an ear described as an arc with a small circle in the middle. Since it is impossible to see simultaneously another person's nose and ear straight on, Picasso has given us two view points at once, a technique he used earlier in paintings such as Nude Woman in a Red Armchair 1932. However, he is not content to simply give each facet it's own viewpoint. Instead he continues to playfully multiplying them. So the nose on the left hand facet is itself described from two different viewpoints. The two nostrils give us the feature face on, then the outline of the head, which runs horizontally below the nostrils and then vertically down the neck, suggests the nose in profile. The two angled facets of the sculpture further enhance the profusion of viewpoints. For depending on where the viewer stands in relation to the sculpture, they can look either at each facet separately, or view them both together.

Raised Image 3
This image is similar to the first, only all the holes are represented. At the top is the dogleg shape of the head with the cut out eyes, nose, ear and cheek. On the far right is the blank mass of the 'stabiliser' facet. Towards the centre, below the cheek is a dogleg hole which is the arm bent at the elbow. Next to it, at shoulder height is a hole that represents the woman's breast or heart. Finally, the left hand outline edge is the line of the other arm which runs along the shoulder and hands straight down, ending in a jagged edge which are the fingers. End of Raised Image Description

Picasso also describes the body of the woman differently on each facet. Both sides depict an arm. The centre facet has had an arm-shaped hole cut out. The arm is shown bent at ninety degrees at the elbow and alongside it, is another, smaller heart shaped hole that could be either her heart or a breast. In contrast, the arm on the left hand facet is solid. All the surrounding metal has been cut away leaving it hanging down from the 'spine' of the fold in the sheet metal.

Raised Image 4
This image shows only the left and centre facets. They have been separated from each other for ease of explanation and the holes cut out of the sculpture are represented as raised areas. This drawing is designed to represent the way that each facet looks if viewed in isolation. On the left of the page is the left hand facet. The folded edge of the facet is represented by the dotted vertical line and the folds in the arm are represented by the three horizontal dotted lines. If you explore the head of this facet, you will notice how the single eye and the two nostrils dominate the limited space, giving the figure a powerful frontal stare when seen from this angle. Whereas the centre facet on the right has a softer feeling due to the eye being smaller in relation to the size of the facet. Also there is a greater overall sense of a profile view due to the side on view of the eye, ear, lips, chin and arm. End of Raised Image Description

This arm has also been bent to create three horizontal folds, making the metal zigzag back and forth like the paper of a fan. These folds catch the light and cast shadows, animating the figure further. However they also defy human anatomy as there's one fold too many, giving the arm a second elbow or wrist.

Woman is a sculpture that plays with the viewer's perception of space and form by using both solid material and its absence to describe the human body. It also blurs the boundary between drawing and sculpture by presenting multiple viewpoints not through solid three-dimensional mass, but with the outlines created by cutting and folding a flat sheet of metal. The pleasure of looking at Picasso's cut metal sculptures comes from the bravura combination of visual complexity and technical simplicity.

During their careers, both Matisse and Picasso spoke of the need for an artist to see the world as if through the eyes of a child. Even as old men, both artists strove to maintain a freshness and vibrancy in their art. Their curiosity to discover new ways of extending the limits of representation through abstraction remained undiminished by age. Matisse's paper cut outs and Picasso's cut metal sculptures capture the simplicity and immediacy of a child's vision. Yet although their techniques were borrowed from the schoolroom, their art continued to innovative. It demonstrated that our understanding of form and space can be challenged using only the simplest materials and the minimum of physical intervention.