William Somerset Maugham

British, 1874 - 1965

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English playwright and author (1874–1965)

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Pablo Picasso, Woman Sitting in a Garden [verso], 1901, oil on cardboard, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1996.129.1.b

Woman Sitting in a Garden [verso]

Pablo Picasso · 1901 · oil on cardboard ·  Accession ID  1996.129.1.b

A young man and boy look at a man laid out on a bed in this horizontal composition. All three people have white-colored skin and are loosely painted, as is the incomplete setting. The man lies with his eyes closed on the bed with his head to our left and feet to our right. He is on a baby-blue field, perhaps a blanket, and his head is propped up on a thick white pillow. He has black hair and delicate features, and his hands are together in prayer over his belly. The white ruffled collar and a diamond made up of smaller red, blue, yellow, and black diamonds are painted on his shoulder. The rest of his body is blocked in loosely with lapis blue except the cuff we can see, which is bright white. The young man and boy look on from near the man’s shins on the far side of the bed. Both have close-cropped hair. The young man cranes his neck forward, and his head and shoulders are surrounded by a white field against the brown cardboard on which this is painted. His garment is white over the shoulders and red on the torso. Only the head and neck of the boy are visible beyond the prone man. The artist signed the work in black in the lower right corner, “Picasso.”
Pablo Picasso, The Death of Harlequin [recto], 1905, gouache over charcoal on cardboard, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1996.129.1.a

The Death of Harlequin [recto]

Pablo Picasso · 1905 · gouache over charcoal on cardboard ·  Accession ID  1996.129.1.a

A woman wearing a pale blue and gray patterned top and turquoise skirt stretches out in an armchair in this stylized, almost square painting. The scene is loosely painted with areas of mostly flat color, especially in the background, so some details are difficult to make out. The woman is centered in the composition, and her legs stretch to our left. She has upswept dark brown hair, peach-colored skin, and her eyes, nose, and mouth are drawn with dark gray lines. Her blousy top is vertically patterned with lead-gray leaves down the front and elongated dots on the sleeves. Each sleeve also has a carrot-orange band on the upper arm. Her skirt is spearmint green, and she wears bone-white pumps. She sits in a canary-yellow armchair with red down the front of the arms and along the bottom, where the wood frame would be. One foot stretches to rest on a matching footstool, while her other leg is curled under her. The denim-blue floor tilts toward us and is covered with thin white lines in a chevron pattern. In the lower right is a red table with a bright yellow vase covered with swipes of brown and green. The vase is filled with elongated, abstract mauve-pink and mint-green shapes on slender white stems. The back wall of the room has an aqua-green cabinet to our left, which holds a silver urn and dishes of round objects. There is also a cantaloupe-orange footstool and other pieces of small furniture there, below paintings on the white wall. Above the woman is a white door with panels outlined in gray, and a section of black wall to our right has more paintings. The artist signed and dated the lower right, “Henri Matisse 40.”
Henri Matisse, Woman Seated in an Armchair, 1940, oil on canvas, Given in loving memory of her husband, Taft Schreiber, by Rita Schreiber, 1989.31.1

Woman Seated in an Armchair

Henri Matisse · 1940 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1989.31.1