Modern and Contemporary Art Bather, Design for a Monument (Dinard) Made in France, Europe1928 Pablo Ruiz y Picasso, Spanish, 1881 - 1973 Oil on canvas * Gallery 174, Modern and Contemporary Art, first floor (Tuttleman Gallery) 1952-61-99 A. E. Gallatin Collection, 1952 |
LabelIn August 1928, Picasso and his family vacationed at Dinard, a popular resort town on the northwestern coast of France. During this vacation, the artist completed a series of paintings of naked female bathers playing with beach balls as studies for a never-realized monument. Although his wife, Olga, accompanied Picasso on this trip, the grotesque female figures that appear in these works are thought to represent his teenage mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter, who secretly lodged nearby. Walter's body has been transformed in this painting into a strange anthropomorphic structure, with a button head, boomerang-shaped torso, conelike breasts, and tubular sticks for limbs.* Works in the collection are moved off view for many different reasons. Although gallery locations on the website are updated regularly, there is no guarantee that this object will be on display on the day of your visit. |
