Focus on this artwork and explore the Hidden painting.
Since the 1950s, there had been speculation that the painting had something hidden beneath its surface, after a conservator at The Philips Collection noticed inconsistencies in the brushwork. A hidden painting was later confirmed in 1997 by x-ray images. When infra-red scans were carried out on the painting in 2008, a portrait of a bearded man wearing a bow tie was revealed beneath the surface. The man is depicted in a seated position, with his right hand touching his cheek. In 2014, art experts from The Phillips Collection, the National Gallery of Art, Cornell University, and Winterthur Museum consolidated their research and concluded that Picasso had painted both images in haste in the summer of 1901.Picasso painted The Blue Room at a period in his life when he was still a struggling, impoverished artist. Although he was a prolific artist in his youth, his melancholy blue paintings of poor people did not create much interest from buyers. He could not, therefore, afford to purchase new canvases for every new idea and instead reused existing ones.
National Gallery of Art The Phillips Collection Winterthur Museum Cornell University