Fernande Olivier

Prints and Drawings

summer 1906

Pablo Picasso
Spanish, 1881-1973

This work depicts the artist and model Fernande Olivier (1881–1966). She was Picasso’s partner for eight years and frequent subject. The pair spent the summer of 1906 in the small town of Gósol in the Spanish Pyrenees and it was here that Picasso made the drawing. According to Olivier, their relationship was tumultuous because of their mutual jealousy, but, as a model and companion who catered to his demanding lifestyle, she was essential to his early success.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Pablo Picasso
Title: Fernande Olivier
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.: 1906
Medium: Charcoal, with stumping, on cream laid paper
Inscriptions: Signed recto, lower right, in graphite: "Picasso" (underlined)
Dimensions: 61 × 45.8 cm (24 1/16 × 18 1/16 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Hermann Waldeck
Reference Number: 1951.210
Copyright: © 2018 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Maurice Raynal, Picasso (Munich, 1921), p. XI, as Tête de Femme.
Pablo Picasso (The World’s Master’s) (London, 1930), pl. III, as Head of a Woman.
The Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly 46:4 (November 15, 1952), p. 75 (ill.).
Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, VI (Paris, 1954) no. 747 (ill.).
Alfred Frankfurter, “Il bon disegno from Chicago,” Art News 62: 7 (November 1963) p. 29, fig. 6 (ill.).
Ileana Soldea, Picasso (Bucharest, 1972), p. 60, fig. 15.
John Maxon, The Art Institute of Chicago (New York, 1970), p. 165 (ill.).
Edward Burns, Gertrude Stein on Picasso (New York, 1970), p. 60 (ill.).
Jean Leymarie, Picasso: Métamorphoses et unité (Geneva, 1971), p. 211 (ill.).
Alan G. Wilkinson, “Picasso: Head of a Woman (Fernande),” Art Gallery of Ontario, Masterpiece Exhibition Series 3 (1986), p. 5, fig. 4.
Picasso: The Ludwig Collection, exh. cat. (Munich, 1992), p. 56 (ill.).
John Richardson, A Life of Picasso: Volume II 1907–1917 (New York, 1996), p. 233 (ill.).
Christopher Lloyd, Picasso and the Art of Drawing (London, 2018), pp. 68-70, pl. 43.
Enrique Mallen, The On-Line Picasso Project ((http://www.tamu.edu/mocl/picasso/), no. 06:52 (ill.).

New York, Museum of Modern Art, “20th Century Portraits,” December 9, 1942–January 24, 1943, p. 48 (ill.).
New York, Wildenstein and Company, “Master Drawings from The Art Institute of Chicago,” October 17–November 30, 1963, cat. 154, pl. XLIX.
Kassel, Alte Galerie, Musuem Fridericianum, “Documenta III, Handzeichnungen,” June 27-October 5, 1964, vol 3, part 2 cat. 12, p. 186.
St Louis, Mo., Washington University Gallery of Art, “Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Artists and Draughtsmen,” March 13–April 8, 1966, no cat.
Fort Worth, Tex., Fort Worth Art Center and the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, “Picasso,” February 8–March 26, 1967, p. 101, cat. 17.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Picasso in Chicago,” February 3–March 31, 1968, pp. 61, 56, and 116, cat. 63 (ill.).
Palm Beach, Fla., Society of Four Arts, “Drawings and Prints from The Art Institute of Chicago,” January 4–27, 1974, cat. 37.
Frankfort-am-Main, Städtische Galerie in Städelschen Kunstinstiutut, “Franzöische Zeichnungen aus dem Art Institute of Chicago,” February 10–April 10, 1977, pp. 176–177, cat. 85 (ill.).
Cambridge, Mass., Fogg Art Museum, “Master Drawings by Picasso,” Februarry 20–April 5, 1981, pp. 68–69, cat 19 (ill); traveled to The Art Institute of Chicago, April 29–June 14, 1981, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, July 11–August 23, 1981.
Tübingen Germany, Kunsthalle Tübingen, “Picasso: Pastelle, Zeichnungen, Aquarelle,” April 5–May 25, 1986, n.p., cat. 36 (ill.); traveled to the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, June 6–July 27, 1986.
Barcelona, Picasso Museum, “Picasso 1905-1906, From the Rose Period to the Ochres of Gósol,” February 5–April 19, 1992, pp. 296–297, cat. 132 (ill.); traveled to the Kunstmuseum, Berne, May 8–June 26, 1992.
New York, Museum of Modern Art, “Picasso and Portraiture: Representation and Transformation,” April 28–September 17, 1996, p. 259 (ill.); traveled to the Grand Palais, Paris, October 1996–January 1997.
Washington DC, The National Gallery of Art, “Picasso’s Drawings 1890-1921: Reinventing Tradition”, February 5 - May 6, 2012, pp 12-13, and 122-125, cat 21 (ill), cat. by Susan Grace Galassi, Marilyn McCully et. al.
Art Institute of Chicago, “Picasso and Chicago”, February 20-May 12, 2013, p. 44, cat. 25 (ill.), cat. by Stephanie d’Alessandro.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Picasso: Drawing from Life”, November 11, 2023 - April 8, 2024.

Oscar Huldschinsky (1846-1931), Berlin [according to Cambridge, Mass. 1981]. Mrs. A. Fürstenberg, Amsterdam [according to Cambridge, Mass. 1981]. Sold by Wildenstein and Company, New York to the Art Institute, 1951.

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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.

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