Woman Plaiting Her Hair

Pablo Picasso, 1906 · Gallery 502 · Floor 5

A woman, fixing her hair. Most ordinary thing in the world. So why does she look like she was built for a temple? Picasso had spent that whole summer in the Spanish Pyrenees, in a village called Gósol. He gets back to Paris in August. And then he paints this. Blank, ancient-looking face. Heavy body. Looks dug up, not painted. And actually, Picasso wasn't done with the idea. That same August, he makes another woman doing her hair. Out of clay this time. He fires her in a kiln in the kitchen of a potter friend up in Montmartre. A Basque guy named Paco Durrio, who'd been badgering him for ages to try clay. First thing he ever made in clay. So this little everyday thing, fixing your hair, keeps coming out of his hands like some ancient ritual. And that's the weird part. He's not painting a queen. She's not doing anything heroic. She's just getting ready. And somehow the moment gets all this weight. Now jump thirty-four years. Picasso paints another woman doing her hair. Same basic gesture. Completely different woman. And this time? It looks like the end of the world.

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