The Red Armchair

In December 1931 Pablo Picasso began a series of paintings of Marie-Thérèse Walter, a French model with whom he was romantically involved while married to his first wife, Olga Khokhlova. Perhaps acknowledging their double life, Picasso invented a new motif–a face encompassing both frontal and profile views. A constant innovator, Picasso experimented with materials as well as with form and style. The Red Armchair demonstrates the artist’s inventive use of Ripolin, an industrial house paint. Mixing it with oil paint he produced various surfaces, from the rough, yellow background to the almost brushless finish of the black lines.