Pablo Picasso, Portrait of Marie-Thérèse Walter. Photo: Abertis

BARCELONA, SPAIN.-Abertis acquired Pablo Picasso’s painting Mujer con gorro y cuello de piel (1937) which it then donated to the State through a payment of taxes. The Ministry of Culture has ceded the work to the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC). The work is an oil on canvas, measuring 61 x 51 centimetres, showing Marie-Thérèse Walter, the Malaga painter’s sentimental companion between approximately 1927 and 1935. In the portrait, Picasso carried out an exhaustive analytical exercise and subjected Marie-Thérèse’s youth and personality to a thousand metamorphic transformations. The artist converted the model into an icon of sensuality through a rich pictorial language in which the distortion of shapes meant the consolidation of the so-called Picasso style which marked the keys of the artistic language of the 20th century.

The acquisition of this work of art to be later handed over to the State so that it can be visited at the MNAC is part of abertis’ actions to inform about our artistic legacy and to support the country’s main cultural institutions. (by courtesy www.Artdail.org)