CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 10/24/2016

Picasso Portraits

Pablo Picasso's 1937 "Portrait of Lee Miller à l'Arlésienne" is one of nearly 90 artworks featured in the National Portrait Gallery's acclaimed London Picasso Portraits exhibition. At the time the painting was made, Miller was often idealized as "the incarnation of perfect beauty, grace and serenity," according to curator Elizabeth Cowling. "Picasso was having none of this. He knew that the real woman was more than a beautiful face and body, more than a graceful clothes-horse, and he apparently felt that, with her racy wit and libertine sexuality, Miller deserved to be treated with friendly banter rather than awestruck homage."