Head of a Sleeping Woman (Study for Nude with Drapery)

The painting Head of a Sleeping Woman (Study for Nude with Drapery) by Pablo Picasso, executed in oil on canvas, dates from 1907. This crucial preparatory work emerged during a intensely productive and experimental period for the Spanish artist in Paris, specifically during the seminal summer of 1907.

The piece serves as a study for the now-lost canvas Nude with Drapery, a major undertaking immediately preceding and conceptually linked to Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Picasso was engaged in a radical overhaul of Western figuration, synthesizing influences from Iberian sculpture and African mask traditions. The work’s formal vocabulary rejects traditional representation; the face of the sleeping woman is reduced to angular, geometric planes, anticipating the foundational visual language of Proto-Cubism. The oil application is direct and decisive, emphasizing architectural contours and sharply defined edges over nuanced shading or naturalistic blending.

This canvas demonstrates Picasso’s profound commitment to structure over sentiment. Despite the potential tenderness of the subject—a sleeping figure—the representation is aggressive and monumental. The abstracted planes and simplified facial features contribute to the sculpture-like quality of the head.

The significance of this work lies in its position at the nexus of modern art, documenting the moment Picasso transitioned from his Rose Period aesthetics toward a revolutionary mode of representation. As an essential artifact of early modernism, the canvas is held in the esteemed collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). While the original painting remains highly protected, high-quality images and prints of this critical contribution to Spanish 20th-century art are often made available through museum and public domain reference resources for advanced artistic and historical study.