The Red Armchair

December 16, 1931

Pablo Picasso
Spanish, active France, 1881–1973

In December 1931 Pablo Picasso began a series of paintings of Marie-Thérèse Walter, a French model with whom he was romantically involved while married to his first wife, Olga Khokhlova. Perhaps acknowledging their double life, Picasso invented a new motif–a face encompassing both frontal and profile views. A constant innovator, Picasso experimented with materials as well as with form and style. The Red Armchair demonstrates the artist’s inventive use of Ripolin, an industrial house paint. Mixing it with oil paint he produced various surfaces, from the rough, yellow background to the almost brushless finish of the black lines.

Status: On View, Gallery 394
Department: Modern Art

Artist: Pablo Picasso
Title: The Red Armchair
Place: Spain (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1931
Medium: Oil and Ripolin on panel
Inscriptions: Signed, u.r.: "Picasso"
Dimensions: 131.1 × 98.7 cm (51 5/8 × 38 7/8 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Saidenberg
Reference Number: 1957.72
Copyright: © 2018 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Galeries Georges Petit, Picasso, exh. cat. (Paris: Galeries Georges Petit, 1932), p. 65, cat. 199.
Cahiers d’Art 3–5 (June 1932), n.p. (ill.).
Kunsthaus Zurich, Picasso, exh. cat. (Zurich: Kunsthaus Zurich, 1932), p. 15, cat. 203.
Hans Heilmaier, “Ein Meister Heutiger Malerie, zur grossen Picasso-Austellung in Paris,” Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 70 (April–September 1932), p. 360 (ill.), as Frau im Roten Sessel.
Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso VII (Paris: Cahiers d’Art, 1951), p. 139, no. 334 (ill.), as Femme Dans un Fauteuil.
Lionello Venturi, Mostra di Pablo Picasso (Rome: Galeria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, 1953), p. 36, cat. 21 (ill.).
Palazzo Reale, Pablo Picasso, exh. cat. (Milan: Edizioni d’arte Amilcare Pizzi, 1953), p. 51, cat. 59 (ill.).
Maurice Raynal, Picasso, The Taste of Our Time Series, trans. by James Emmons (Geneva: Skira, 1953), p. 92 (ill.).
Musée des arts Decoratifs, Picasso: Peintures 1900-1955, exh. cat. (Paris: Musée des arts Decoratifs, 1955), cat. 76 (ill.).
Haus der Kunst, Picasso 1900-1955, exh. cat. (Munich: Haus der Kunst, 1955), cat. 65 (ill.).
Alexander Watt, “The Problem of Picasso,” Studio 150:752 (Nov. 1955), pp. 144, 146 (ill).
José Camón Aznar, Picasso y el Cubismo (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1956), p. 499, fig. 370, as Mujeres.
Frank Elgar and Robert Maillard, Picasso (Paris: Fernand Hazan, 1955), n.p. (ill.).
The Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly 51:4 (1957), p. 83, cover (ill.).
Jean Cassou, Panorama des Arts Plastiques Contemporains (Paris: Librairie Gallimard, 1960), fig. 26.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1961), pp. 358 and 436 (ill.).
Brassaï, Conversations avec Picasso (Paris: Gallimard, 1964; London: Thames and Hudson, 1966), p. 18.
André Breton, Le Surréalisme et la Peinture (Paris: Gallimard, 1965), p. 115 (ill.).
Pierre Cabanne, “Picasso,” La Galerie des arts 34 (May 1966), p. 25 (ill.).
A. James Speyer, “Twentieth-Century European Paintings and Sculpture,” Apollo 84 (Sept. 1966), p. 225.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Picasso in Chicago, exh. cat. (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1968), p. 35, cat. 35 (ill.).
Howard Greenfield, Pablo Picasso: An Introduction (Chicago: Follett Publishing Company, 1971), pp. 116–117 (ill.).
Yusuke Nakahara, Picasso and Matisse, Grand Collection of World Art 23 (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1974), pl. 18.
William Rubin, Pablo Picasso: A Retrospective, exh. cat. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1980), p. 288 (ill.).
Linda Nochlin, “Picasso’s Color: Schemes and Gambits,” Art in America 68:10 (Dec. 1980), pp. 120, 179, and 183, fig. 19.
A. James Speyer and Courtney Graham Donnell, Twentieth Century European Painting (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 64, no. 3D9.
Alice Doumanian Tankard, Picasso’s “Guernica” after Rubens’s “Horrors of War” (Philadelphia: The Art Alliance Press, 1984), p. 58, pl. 27.
Herschel B. Chipp, Picasso’s Guernica (Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press, 1988), pp. 122–123, fig. 7.22, as The Red Chair.
Picasso (France: ODA Laser Edition, 1992), p. 63, no. 28728, as Woman in an Armchair.
Carsten-Peter Warncke, Pablo Picasso 1881–1973 I (Cologne: Benedikt Taschen, 1992), p. 348 (ill.), as Femme Assise Dans un Fauteuil Rouge.
Peter Gray, Psychology, second edition (New York: Worth, 1994), pp. xi and 160 (ill.).
Judi Freeman, Picasso and the “Weeping Women,” exh. cat. (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1994), pp. 154–1544, fig. 116.
William Rubin, Picasso and Portraiture: Representation and Transformation, exh. cat. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1996), pp. 342–344, and 346 (ill).
Christie’s, New York, Impressionist and Modern Paintings, Drawings, and Sculptures (Part I) (May 14, 1997), p. 147, fig. 7.
Christie’s, New York, The Collection of Victor and Sally Ganz (Nov. 10, 1997), p. 165, fig. 8.
The Picasso Project, Picasso’s Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings, and Sculpture: A Comprehensive Illustrated Catalogue 1885–1973, Surrealism 1930–1936 (San Francisco: Alan Wofsy Fine Arts, 1997), p. 74, no. 31–082 (ill.).
Pablo Picasso: The Time with Françoise Gilot, exh. cat. (Bielefelt: Kerber Verlag, 2002), pp. 32–33, fig. 5.
La epoca de Picasso: donaciones a los museos americanos (Santander: Fundación Marcelino Botín, 2004), pp. 43 and 247.
Enrique Mallen, The On-Line Picasso Project (http://www.tamu.edu/mocl/picasso/), no. 31:04 (ill).

Paris, Galeries Georges Petit, Picasso, June 16–July 30, 1932, p. 65, cat. 199, as La Femme au Fauteuil Rouge.
Zurich, Kunsthaus, Picasso, September 11–October 30, 1932, p. 15, cat. 203, as Frau in Rotem Lehnstuhl.
Rome, Galeria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Mostra di Pablo Picasso, May–July 5, 1953, p. 36, cat. 21 (ill.).
Milan, Palazzo Reale, Pablo Picasso, September–November 1953, p. 51, cat. 59 (ill.).
Paris, Musée des arts Decoratifs, Picasso: Peintures 1900-1955, June–October 1955, cat. 76 (ill.).
Munich, Haus der Kunst, Picasso 1900-1955, October 25–December 18, 1955, cat. 65 (ill.); traveled to Cologne, Rheinisches Museum, December 30, 1955–February 29, 1956 and Hamburg, Kunstverein, Kunsthalle-Artbau, March 10–April 26, 1956.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Picasso in Chicago, February 3–March 31, 1968, pp. 35 amd 114, cat. 35 (ill.).
New York, Museum of Modern Art, Pablo Picasso: A Retrospective, May 22–September 16, 1980, p. 288 (ill.).
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Picasso and the ‘Weeping Women,’ February 13–May 1, 1994, pp. 154–155, fig. 116; traveled to New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, June 12–September 4, 1994, and The Art Institute of Chicago, October 8, 1994–January 8, 1995.

The artist; Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris, 1955 [letter from Eleanore Saidenberg, Oct. 10, 1975; copy in curatorial file]; sold to Saidenberg Gallery, July 25, 1956 [Invoice, July 25, 1956; copy in curatorial file]; given to the Art Institute, 1957.

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