At the end of Easter Week 1932 in his Normandy home, the ch&acirc";“teau de Boisgeloup, Picasso painted six compositions entitled Reclining Woman on the Beach. Together they comprise an enigmatic series of works that have been little studied up to now despite the vast bibliography on the artist. The series remained in Picasso&rsquo”;“s possession throughout his life with the exception of the last work, which was purchased by the English Surrealist artist Roland Penrose in March 1937. In his memoirs Penrose recalls that when he first saw the painting, reproduced in Cahiers d&rsquo”;“Art, &ldquo”;“It seemed to have a magic I had never known before&rdquo”;“. Three of the paintings that make up the series are currently on display in Gallery 5 of the Museo Picasso Málaga. Last year the Museum commissioned Elizabeth Cowling of Edinburgh University to write a detailed study of the six works and the context in which they were created. The result of her painstaking analysis has been published by the Museum in a book that aims to contribute to the study and knowledge of Picasso&rsquo”;“s work. It will undoubtedly become one of the reference texts for scholars of this period of Picasso&rsquo”;“s output. Since 1979 Elizabeth Cowling has taught at Edinburgh University where she has also been actively engaged in research, principally focused on 20th-century European art and in particular the work of Magritte, Matisse and Picasso. In addition she is known for her activities as an exhibition curator and co-curator, including Picasso: sculptor/painter (Tate Gallery, London, 1994) and Matisse-Picasso (Tate Gallery, London”;" Grand Palais, Paris";" MoMA, New York";" 2002-2003). Cowling is currently working on an exhibition that will explore Picasso&rsquo";“s lifetime interest in the work of Degas. Among her publications are Picasso: Style and Meaning (Phaidon Press) which was selected as Book of the Year by the respected art journal Apollo in 2002 and which won the British Academy prize in 2003, as well as Visiting Picasso: the Notebooks and Letters of Roland Penrose (Thames &amp”;" Hudson, 2006) in which she published the private writings of the Surrealist artist.