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Picasso: The Artist's Studio

About the Exhibition

Exhibition Highlights


<I>Self-Portrait with Palette</I>, 1906<BR>Oil on canvas <BR>Philadelphia Museum of Art. A. E. Gallatin Collection <BR>[Cat. no. 8]
Self-Portrait with Palette, 1906
Oil on canvas
Philadelphia Museum of Art. A. E. Gallatin Collection
[Cat. no. 8]
©2001 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Self-Portrait with Palette, 1906

Self-Portrait with Palette, 1906
Oil on canvas
Philadelphia Museum of Art. A. E. Gallatin Collection
[Cat. no. 8]
©2001 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Picasso's preparatory drawings for this striking self-portrait of 1906 indicate that the composition went through considerable transformation. At one point, Picasso considered portraying himself in the act of painting, his gaze focused on touching brush to palette. But the final painting shows the artist staring outward, holding only a palette, his right hand clenched in a fist. Even more than the crude shirt he wears, it is the artist's broad, sharply chiseled face that conveys an impression of raw creativity. The stylized facial features, especially the large almond-shaped eyes, derive from Picasso's recent study of ancient sculpture from the Iberian Peninsula-now occupied by Spain and Portugal.

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