Focus on Girl before a Mirror and analyze the Background.
This painting was produced in 1932, a significant year in Picasso's artistic career. By this point in his life, Picasso had already reached the age of 51 and had established his reputation as an important artist. In 1932, Galerie Georges Petit presented a retrospective exhibition of his work, which was an unusual event for an artist, with Picasso taking control of the curation. This was also a highly productive year for Picasso, in which he focused many of his works on his 22-year-old mistress and muse Marie-Thérèse Walter. His 1932 portraits of her were the first public display of their secret affair during his marriage to Olga Khokhlova.Several months after completing this portrait, Picasso stated, "The body of work one creates is a form of diary", alluding to the autobiographical nature of the work. Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Director of The Museum of Modern Art, reported that Picasso had said that he "preferred this painting to any of the others in the long series he had completed that spring".
Georges Petit Marie-Thérèse Walter Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Galerie Georges Petit Olga Khokhlova Museum of Modern Art