The Red Armchair

This is a painting of a woman seated in an armchair, made by Pablo Picasso on December 16, 1931. It is fairly large, about one metre thirty tall and almost one metre wide. The paint sits on a wooden panel rather than canvas. The colours are bold: red, green, purple, brown and yellow. The figure is not drawn the way a camera would see her. Her body and the chair are built from curving shapes, and black lines run around them like the outlines in a colouring book. The style is called Cubism.

Look at the woman's face first. Picasso has shown it from the front and from the side at the same time, so one head seems to hold two views. Then look at the background, which is a rough, yellow surface. You can almost feel its texture just by looking. Finally, follow the black lines that trace the figure and the chair. Their finish is smooth, with almost no sign of brushstrokes, which makes a strong contrast with the rough yellow behind them.

In December 1931 Picasso began a series of paintings of Marie-Thérèse Walter, a French model with whom he was romantically involved. At the time he was married to his first wife, Olga Khokhlova. Picasso also experimented with materials. Here he used Ripolin, which is an industrial house paint, and mixed it with ordinary oil paint. By blending the two in different ways he produced different surfaces, from the rough yellow background to the smooth black lines.

Picasso invented a new motif in these paintings: a face that combines front and profile views. The museum suggests this may acknowledge the double life he was leading, with a wife and with Marie-Thérèse Walter. It also shows an artist who kept inventing, in his way of drawing and in his choice of paint. Take a little more time with the face, and see how the two views meet. Notice where the front view ends and the profile begins, and how the two are joined into one.