Standing Female Nude

Pablo Picasso

1910 · Charcoal on paper · Modern and Contemporary Art

This drawing exemplifies many aspects of the style known as Analytic Cubism, pioneered by Picasso with his friend Georges Braque. Here, the artist reinterprets the female nude as a series of lines and semicircles. Areas of shading provide only hints of three-dimensional form; however, essential parts of a human body—head, neck, shoulders, arms, torso, breasts, legs, and kneecaps—appear nonetheless. Picasso, who received traditional art training early in life (his father was a professor of fine arts), piques the viewer’s desire to fill in, or "complete," the figure according to academic standards of finish.

Artist

Pablo Picasso

Date

1910

Medium

Charcoal on paper

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1949