Seated Woman in an Armchair

‘Picasso first met Jacqueline Roque Hutin (Fig. 1) in 1952, when she worked in the salesroom of the Madoura ceramics shop. She moved in with the artist two years later, and they eventually married in 1961. Jacqueline’s image dominates the work of Picasso’s last twenty years, and, in many ways, this so-called époque Jacqueline centres on their lives together, with her as the artist’s principal muse.

Fig. 1: Roberto Otero. Pablo and Jacqueline Picasso in the Living Room of Notre-Dame-de-Vie. Notre-Dame-de-Vie (Mougins), [1966-1972]. Fondo Roberto Otero. Museo Picasso Málaga © Fondo Roberto Otero. Museo Picasso Málaga, 2024 © Succession Pablo Picasso, VEGAP, Madrid, 2024

Seated Woman in Brown in an Armchair [Seated Woman in an Armchair] is the second of Three paintings that Picasso did of Jacqueline on the same day, 27 November 1960, either in his studio in Cannes or at the château de Vauvenargues, which he had acquired the previous year. In each of the compositions, Jacqueline is shown seated in an upholstered armchair, which is clearly defined in the present work and the third of the series (Fig. 3): note the studs along the edges of the arms, back and seat of the chair and the turned, wooden legs. In the first of the series (Fig. 2), the chair has actually merged with the body of the sitter.

Fig. 2: Pablo Picasso. Seated Woman (Jacqueline) I, Cannes o Vauvenargues, November 27, 1960. The Museum of Modern Art, Toyama © All rights reserved © Succession Pablo Picasso, VEGAP, Madrid, 2024

In each of the compositions, Jacqueline’s face is shown both frontally and in profile, with light falling across her nose and chin. Picasso painted her hands in an abbreviated, but exaggerated manner, with most of the fingers ending in points. In the third composition she holds a book or newspaper, an item that does not appear in the other two. The folds of Jacqueline’s brown dress also create flat planes in this painting, while in Seated Woman in Brown in an Armchair these elements are quite freely brushed. This sketchy quality to the brushwork is picked up in the grey shadows behind her head’.

Fig. 3: Pablo Picasso. Seated Woman, 1960. Detroit Institute of Arts. Bequest of W. Hawkins Ferry © Detroit Institute of Art/Scala, Florence © Succession Pablo Picasso, VEGAP, Madrid, 2024

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. 217.