Three Nudes

Pablo Picasso

Gósol, summer 1906 · Gouache, ink, watercolor, and charcoal on white laid paper · Modern and Contemporary Art

Picasso painted this brothel scene in Gósol, a remote village in the Spanish Pyrenees that he and his companion Fernande Olivier (who posed for this work) visited in the summer of 1906. The inscriptions describe the poses, furnishings, and colors. This sheet of paper was among the art supplies that Picasso brought with him from Paris. Earlier drawings of kneeling and standing nudes are visible in the upper left quadrant (the sheet was oriented in the other direction when he made them, so the legs appear upside down). A dark oval shape at lower center dates to yet another drawing campaign: it is the head of a figure in a seated lotus pose that resembles American writer Gertrude Stein, whose portrait, now in The Met’s collection (47.106), Picasso had begun painting earlier that year.

Artist

Pablo Picasso

Date

Gósol, summer 1906

Medium

Gouache, ink, watercolor, and charcoal on white laid paper

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

Leonard A. Lauder Cubist Collection, Gift of Leonard A. Lauder, 2016