Ambroise Vollard, Paris
Paul Guillaume, Paris
Valentine Galleries, New York
Walter P. Chrysler, New York
Acquavella Galleries, New York
Private collection, since 1976
Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Exposition Pablo Picasso, 16 June - 30 July 1932, no. 69
Zurich, Kunsthaus, Picasso II, September - October 1932, no. 6, ill.
New York, Museum of Modern Art, Cubism and Abstract Art, April 1936, no. 207, ill. 14
New York, Valentine Galleries, Picasso 1901-1937, November 1937, no. 11
New York, Marie Harriman Gallery, Figure Painting by Picasso, February 1939, no. 4
Boston, Institute of Modern Art, New York, Wildenstein & Co., The Sources of Modern Painting, respectively 2 March - 9 April 1939, ill. p. 54, and 25 April - 20 May 1939, no. 33, ill. p. 48
New York, Museum of Modern Art, Chicago, The Art Institute, Saint Louis, Art Museum, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Picasso: Forty Years of His Art, respectively 15 November 1939 - 7 January 1940, 1 February - 3 March 1940, 16 March - 14 April 1940 and 26 April - 25 May 1940, no. 72, ill.
Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Museum of Art, Collection of Walter P. Chrysler Jr., respectively 16 January - 4 March 1941 and 29 March - 11 May 1941, no. 157, ill. pp. 86-87
Toronto, Art Gallery, Picasso, April 1949, no. 5
Minneapolis, Walker Art Centre, Boston, Institute of Contemporary Art, San Francisco, Museum of Art, Cincinnati, Contemporary Arts Center, Baltimore, Museum of Art, Buffalo, Albright Art Gallery, Expressionism 1900-1955, respectively 22 January - 11 March 1956, 11 April - 13 May 1956, 6 June - 22 July 1956, 28 August - 25 September 1956, 10 October - 4 November 1956 and 17 November - 30 December 1956, ill.
Dayton, Art Center, French Paintings 1789-1929 from the Collection of Walter P. Chrysler Jr., 25 March - 22 May 1960, no. 113, ill. p. 121
London, The Tate Gallery, Picasso, 6 July - 18 September 1960, ill. 9A, pp. 22-23
Provincetown, Chrysler Art Museum, Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, The Controversial Century 1850-1950, 1962, ill.
Houston, The Museum of Fine Arts, The Heroic Years: Paris, 1908-1914, 20 October -8 December 1965
Norfolk, Chrysler Museum, Picasso Retrospective, 17 June - 21 July 1973
Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, Carnegie Institute Celebration, 25 October 1974 - 5 January 1975
New York, Acquavella Galleries, Picasso, 16 April - 17 May 1975, ill.
New York, Museum of Modern Art, Pablo Picasso: A Retrospective, 1 May - 30 September 1980, ill. 101
Basel, Galerie Beyeler, Picasso 1881-1981, April - July 1981, no. 5
New York, Museum of Modern Art, ‘Primitivism’ in 20thCentury Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern, 5 September 1984 - 15 January 1985, ill. p. 269
Basel, Kunstmuseum, Transform. Bild Objekt Skulptur im 20. Jahrhundert, 14 June – 27 September 1992
Andros, Museum of Contemporary Art, Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation, Classics of Modern Art, 27 June - 19 September 1999, pp. 102-103, ill. p. 103
London, Tate Modern, Matisse Picasso, 11 May - 18 August 2002
Georges Salles, “Réflexions sur l’art nègre”, Cahiers d’art, no. 7-8, 2nd year, Paris, 1927, p. 247
Jean Cassou, Picasso, New York, 1940, ill. p. 60
Alfred Hamilton Barr Jr., Picasso: Fifty Years of His Art, exhibition catalogue, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1946, p. 60
Frank Elgar, Picasso, Tudor, New York, 1956, ill. p. 192
Paul Éluard, Pablo Picasso, Philosophical Library, New York, 1947, ill. p. 72
Robert J. Goldwater, Primitivism in Modern Painting, New York, 1938, ill. XX, 36, illustrated on the cover and on the inside
Helen Frances Mackenzie, Understanding Picasso, Chicago, 1940, ill. IV
Bernard S. Meyers, Modern Art in the Making, New York, 1950, ill. 149
James Johnson Sweeney, Plastic Redirections in 20th Century Painting, Chicago, 1934, ill. 4
Christian Zervos, Histoire de l’Art Contemporain, Paris, 1938, ill. p. 196
Reginald Howard Wilenski, Modern French Painters, New York, 1940, ill. 55A
Christian Zervos, Picasso, Paris, 1940, vol. II, ill. 35, p. 19
The Critic, October - November 1960, vol. XIX, no. 2, p. 14
Lael Wertenbaker and the editors of Time-Life Books, The World of Picasso, Time-Life Library of Art, New York, 1967, ill. p. 69
Pierre Daix, “L’Historique des Demoiselles d’Avignon”, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Musée Picasso, Paris, vol. II, 1988
John Richardson, A Life of Picasso, Volume II: 1907-1917, Random House, New York, 1996, p. 38, ill. p. 39
Nude Woman with Raised Arms is, by all means, the first oil painting that Picasso completed following his masterpiece The Young Ladies of Avignon. These two works are the starting point of a wider adventure, namely cubism.
On the painting one may distinguish the composition of multiple and varied influences on Picasso, aiming to a completely original creation, free from any reference to the past. Certainly, it would be wrong to consider the Nude Woman with Raised Arms as one of the first purely cubist works. However, we observe Picasso’s sudden shift related to naturalism, representation and classical perspective. The third dimension, that artists had been struggling to recreate for years, disappears. The silhouettes, the backgrounds, the accessories are attributed to the two-dimensional space that the work imposes on canvas. Thanks to the elaboration of all these elements in geometric shapes, the viewer is asked to reconstruct the perspective purely intellectually.
The range of colors used is dark, aggressive. The red and black background is dominated by a silhouette, the chest of which adds brightness to the painting. The blue folding to the right mitigates somewhat this impression, but it cannot hide the fact that we are facing an image of rare roughness. Brutality is also felt in the elaboration of the silhouette. The raised, clasped hands behind the head give the impression of movement, although the woman is immortalized in a kneeling posture, with her left knee touching the floor and her right shoulder hovering. The head is just as big as the chest, which in turn has the same size as the calves. The body is drawn as a collision between curved, sharp stripes of space. As for the face, its oval shape is clearly reminiscent of a mask, an impression enhanced by the completely blackened eyes, slightly brightened by the grayish outlines which, due to the thick layer of color, become the central point of the painting. The dense shade, made with black diagonal lines to the right of the overly elongated nose, the rough implication of mouth, the absence of hair raise up the woman to the position of an idol, a female universal symbol.
In our painting, the woman is not hiding, she is not surprised, not captured in a moment of weakness. Instead, she claims her nudity with dynamism, referring to a certain virility. Alone, without other external elements distracting the viewer, she seems to attack the very foundations of the female ideal. No matter how she is raised up as an idol, she does not cease to look threatening, frightening. She has lost her fragile substance and does not hesitate to look straight into the eyes anyone who dares to stand against her. Defiant and provocative, she claims her new freedom, her indifference to what is called beauty.
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