Pablo Picasso

Head: Study for a Monument

1928

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Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso

Head: Study for a Monument

1928

Physical Qualities Oil on canvas, 28 3/4 x 23 1/2 in. (73 x 59.7 cm.)

Credit Line The Dexter M. Ferry, Jr. Trustee Corporation Fund

Object Number 1966.41

Picasso’s friend, the poet and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire, died of influenza in 1918. Head: Study for a Monument is part of Picasso’s effort to fulfill a commission for a monument to be placed at his friend’s gravesite. Unfortunately, Picasso’s proposals for this commission were not accepted. Later, however, he completed a more conventional monument for Apollinaire in a park in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés district of Paris. Head: Study for a Monument is related to Picasso’s paintings of abstracted female figures set against a blue sky, as well as to numerous drawings contained in two notebooks from 1927 and 1928. These drawings include female figures at the beach and bone-like forms and balls arranged as monumental sculptural assemblages.

The Baltimore Museum of Art by purchase, 1966; Galerie Beyeler, Basel by purchase, 1966; Parke-Bernet Galleries, NY, March 23, 1966, lot 45; G. David Thompson collection, Pittsburgh, by purchase [stolen 1961, recovered by the FBI]; Paul Rosenberg & Co. NY; Paul Rosenberg by restitution September 14,1945, after Nazi looting by Einsatzsstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (PR17), May 9, 1941; Paul Rosenberg, by purchase, 1929; from the artist.

Galerie George Petit, Paris, "Picasso", June 16-July 30, 1932

Wilhelm Wartmann, Kunsthaus Zürich, "Picasso", September 11-October 30, 1932

Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT, (exhibited as "Composition" No. 68 in the exhibition, "Picasso", February-March, 1934.

Kunstmuseum Luzern, (exhibited under the title "Métamorphose), No. 93, in the exhibition catalogue, "These, Antithese, Synthese", February 24-March 31, 1935.

Paul Rosenberg Gallery, New York, "Drawings, Gouaches, Paintings from 1913-1947 by Picasso", March 16- April 3, 1948.

Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, "The G. David Thompson Collection of 20th Century Painting and Sculpture", catalogue 2420, March 23-24, 1966, no. 45, p. 84, ill. p. 45.

N. Knoedler & Co., New York, "Space and Dream", December 5-29, 1967, p. 28

Solomon R. Gummenheim Museum, New York, "Rousseau, Redon & Frantasy", May 3-September 8, 1968, p. 9.

Portland Art Museum, "Picasso for Portland", September 2-October 25, 1970, p. 56.

University of Texas, Austin, "Art of the 1920s", October 15-December 7, 1972, p. 83.

Acquavella Galleries, New York, "Picasso (Cancer Care Benefit)", April 5-May 7, 1975.

Hayward Gallery, Arts Council of Great Britian, London "Dada and Surrealism Reviewed", January-March 28, 1979, p. 245.

Tate Gallery, London, "Picasso: Sculptor/Painter", February 16-May 8, 1994.

The Bunkamara Museum of Art, Tokyo, "Picasso", July 4-September 6, 1998. Tour to Nagoya City Art Museum, September 15-November 29, 1998.

Jan Howard, BMA, "Surrealist Art from the BMA's Collection", 31 March-20 June 1999.

Helen Molesworth and Katy Rothkopf, BMA, "European Abstraction from the Collection 1912-1948", February 28-December 2, 2001.

Tate Modern, London, "Surrealism: Desire Unbound", September 20, 2001-December 18, 2001; tour to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, January 28, 2002-May 6, 2002.

"Pablo Picasso: Surrealism and the War Years", The Baltimore Museum of Art, Cone Wing Focus Gallery, January 28-August 29, 2004.

Katy Rothkopf, "Matisse, Picasso and the School of Paris", circulated to; North Carolina Museum of Art, October 10, 2004-January 16, 2005, Naples Museum of Art February 5, 2005-May 1, 2005

Jay Fisher, "Picasso and Surrealism", The Baltimore Museum of Art, June 12, 2005-Sept. 12, 2005.

"Picasso - Bathers", Staatsgaleri Stuttgart, June 8, 2005-October 6, 2005.

"The Enemy Within: George Bataille, Surrealism & The Magazine", South Bank Centre London, May-July 2006.

"Picasso to Plensa: A Century of Art from Spain", The Alberquerque Museum, December 18, 2005, circulating to The Salvador Dali Museum, May 5, 2006-July 30, 2006.

Complesso del Vittoriano, "Picasso 1917 - 1937: Cubista Neoclassicaista Surrealist Espressionista", October 10, 2008-February 8, 2009.

Kunsthaus Zurich, "Pablo Picasso: His First Museum Exhibition 1932", October 15 2010- January 30, 2011.

Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met Breuer), "Untitled: Thoughts Left Visible", March 18-September 4, 2016.

Musée Picasso, “Magic Paintings”, October 01, 2019-February 23, 2020.

American Federation of Arts, "Picasso Landscapes: Out of Bounds", Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH, June 24, 2023 - October 15, 2023.

Kunstmuseum Luzern, "Kandinsky, Picasso, Miro ET AL. Back in Lucerne," July 5, 2025 - November 2, 2025.

Christian Zervos, "Les Dernières oeuvres de Picasso," Paris: Cahiers d'Art, 1929, 6:247.

Documents, deuxième année, 1930, 3:166 (without title).

Cahiers d'Art, Paris, 1932, 3, p. 179

Christian Zervos, "Histoire de l'Art Contemporain," Paris: Cahiers d'Art, 1938, p. 264.

_______, Picasso, 1955, 7:273, ill.

"Picasso," Basel: Galerie Beyeler, 1966, no. 38, ill. pl. 38, (not in exhibition)

"Supplement à la Gazette des Beaux Arts," February 1967, 76, no. 387, ill, p. 109.

Robert Goldwater, "Space and Dream," New York: Walker, 1967, p. 28.

The Baltimore Museum of Art, "News" 1968, 30:1-2, p. 19.

Dawn Ades, "Dada and Surrealism Reviewed," London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1978, p. 245.

Christa Lichtenstern, "Metamorphose Vom Mythos zum Prozebdenken," Amsterdam: VCmH, Acta Humaniora, 1992, p. 181.

Tobia Bezzola, "Picasso: His First Museum Exhibition 1932," Munich, Berlin, London, New York: Prestel, 2010,pp.166 and 286, color ill.