Weeping Woman

During 1937 Picasso became obsessed with the motif of a weeping woman, which symbolised for him the anguish and devastation of the Spanish Civil War.

The figure first appeared among the sketches for [i]Guernica[/i], his famous depiction of the German bombing raid on a Basque town. Picasso produced between sixty and seventy preparatory works and postscripts to [i]Guernica[/i].

Of the subjects he explored the most frequently depicted image is that of a single female head, bearing an expression of anguish and engulfed in tears.

There has been traced thirty-six unique works depicting such images, executed between May and the end of October 1937: 9 paintings on canvas, 21 drawings on paper or card, and 6 small drawings on matchboxes.

The ‘architecture’ of the woman's face in [i]Weeping Woman[/i] is, however, very different from the flat outlined faces of [i]Guernica[/i]. Furthermore, the brilliant and brash colouring of this painting was not only shocking in itself but particularly powerful in being associated with grief.

The model for the entire [i]Weeping Woman[/i] series was a professional photographer Dora Maar, who was one of the leading surrealist artists of the 1930s.

After meeting Picasso in Paris, in 1936, she became his mistress, muse, and intellectual companion. A strong personality, she was instrumental in expanding Picasso's political awareness, and he painted her dozens of times over the course of their relationship from 1936 to 1943.

[i]Weeping Woman[/i] was purchased from Picasso by the British Surrealist artist Roland Penrose shortly after it had been completed in early November 1937. Penrose contextualized this artwork as a Surrealist painting and as a major postscript to [i]Guernica[/i].

Tate Britain, London, UK