Woman with Green Hat

In 1935, Pablo Picasso met Dora Maar, a young photographer among the Surrealists. Picasso had divorced his wife Olga Khokhlova, his mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter had given birth to daughter Maya, and he was struggling with his artistic focus. Maar was an active participant in Picasso’s life as his companion, model, and mistress before and during World War II. In Picasso’s portraits of her from 1938 and early 1939, Maar’s face undergoes wrenching distortions, and she is often shown weeping, perhaps the result of their tumultuous time together. Woman with Green Hat, painted on October 29, 1939, is a hiatus from that dynamic. The uncharacteristic sculptural form of the head harkens back to Picasso’s interest in the art of non-Western cultures, while the wistful expression of the eyes, and the grayish blue and pink of her complexion suggest his Rose Period (1904–06).