Pablo Picasso

The bearded artist in this drawing is Picasso’s avatar, while the recumbent nude resembles his then-lover, Marie-Thérèse Walter. Watercolor covers much of the sheet, but the model’s body has been left suggestively white, as if to conflate her with the classical statuary that inspired Picasso’s work at the time.

Pablo Picasso
Spanish, 1881–1973
The Artist and Model, 1933
Watercolor and pen and black ink
Richard and Mary L. Gray Art Trust
Gray Collection Trust, Art Institute of Chicago
© 2021 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Photography by Jamie Stukenberg, Professional Graphics Inc.