How does Reading the Letter elucidate its Style and controversy?
Picasso is not known to have commented on this work, and the precise date may be in question.  Many features in the painting including facial features and hands resemble those in La Danse Villageoise (1921), Mere et Enfant (spring 1921), and Tete et Main de Femme (1921). The meaning of the painting is not the same to all viewers; one reviewer in the New York Times described it as "social realism". Pierre Daix uses the term "hemstitched eyes" to describe that feature in this and related works of the period. The Picasso Museum (p. 23) and others believe the painting a tribute to Apollinaire, a friend of Picasso who had died recently.  Picasso was criticized by cubist artists for his return to classicism and for mixing classicism and cubism. One modern critic, writing in the Guardian, described the painting as "homoerotic" and "an overwhelming monument to intimacy." Despite any criticism, Arianna Huffington notes (p. 172) that Picasso was enjoying phenomenal financial success at this time, estimating his own earnings at one and a half million francs per year.
Picasso Museum Arianna Huffington Apollinaire Pierre Daix