It is common knowledge the the human countenance and figure were major elements in Picasso’s paintings and sculpture. He didn’t completely turn his attention however to sculpture until around 1906 as he became more and more dissatisfied with the conventions of Western painting. The paintings he freely sold, but the sculptures he kept very much to himself and they were only exhibited relatively later on. They were clearly very important to him.

In his own words:

 

“Sculpture is the best comment that a painter can make on painting”. PP

His lover, the model Fernande Olivier, became the focus of his early portrait work, but this early, ostensibly traditional approach soon gave way to cubist representation where sculptures were made from almost anything at hand dissolving the barriers between pictorial and sculptural art.

 

“Are we to paint what’s on the face, what’s inside the face, or what’s behind it.” PP

 

Based on text by John Golding and Elizabeth Cowling
Pablo Picasso sculptor/Painter