Street Girl

‘The subject-matter of Picasso´s early work – that is, before he left his native Spain – reveals that the young artist was a keen observer of his life on the margins. The sympathy he felt with social outsiders is reflected in his portrayals of prostitutes, as in Woman outside a Dance Hall, and in his depictions of beggars and poverty-stricken families. In part, this reflects his awareness of the literary “generation of´98”, who, in their novels and stories, focused on the dilemmas of changing Spain. The general move to urban areas resulted in a displacement of the por and less fortunate and their plight became the focus of emerging writers and artist alike.

The structural division of Woman outside a Dance Hall underscores its subject, while at the same time it defines the distinction between external gesturing at her crotch, stands to the left of the central vertical, outside the dance hall. In this way, she is marginalized both compositionally and in the sense of her social role.

Light falls on the foreground to emphasize the atmosphere of the exterior, while at the right, the warm illumination of the interior animates the scene of dancing couples. In the shadow at the righ a man and woman (another prostitute?) emerge from the darkness and prepare to leave. A related drawing (… and I haven´t got a penny) shows a woman watching a festival, with a partial inscription explaining her predicament: “… y yo no tengo una peseta” (“… and I haven´t got a penny”).

The artist further framed the scene in the painting with a dark band at the sides and backs, suggesting that he may have considered (but decided against) transferring this composition to a larger canvas. The works was included by the photographer David Douglas Duncan in the book he published in Picasso´s eightieth year, which revealed for the first time m any of the works the painter had kept for himself throughout his career. “But how could I ever have painted that!”, Duncan reported Picasso as saying [1]’ [2].


[1] DUNCAN, David Douglas. Picasso’s Picassos. New York: Harper, 1961, p. 49.
[2] Marilyn McCully in GODEFROY, Cécile y Marilyn McCully (dirs.). Pablo Picasso: 43 Works. [Cat. Exp.: Museo Picasso Málaga, 2010]. Malaga: Museo Picasso Málaga, 2010, p. 22-27.