Pablo Picasso
Spain, 1881-1975
Oil on canvas
University of Michigan Museum of Art
Picasso chose to depict this quiet and contemplative subject with strident colors and distorted forms. Part of the reason may lie in his relationship to the two models.
The figure on the left is undoubtedly Marie-Therese Walter, the 23 year-old woman who gave birth to Picasso's daughter Maia a year and a half after the painting was completed. The identity of the figure on the right is less clear. Some scholars believe that it is Walter's sister; others claim that it is Picasso's first wife, the ballerina Olga Koklova. If the sitter was Olga it is very unlikely that she and Walter posed together, as both were jealous rivals for Picasso's affections.
This imaginary portrait is perhaps explained by the memoirs of Picasso's postwar mistress, Francois Gilot. In her account of her life with Picasso, she relates that one of his most persistent sexual fantasies involved two women of opposite but complementary features, on cold and controlling, light skinned and blond, and the other dark, excitable, and sensuous.