Picasso's Large Bather

This is Picasso's Large Bather, painted in 1921. Bathers were a favorite subject in classical painting and were in vogue among his contemporaries too, with many artists tackling the theme — but Picasso made it his own.

The woman's arms and shoulders are rendered with striking, sturdy strength. At the time, Picasso was living with his wife, the dancer Olga Khokhlova, which gave him frequent opportunities to study dancers' toned, trained bodies up close as they rehearsed; the many drawings he made from those observations clearly inform this painting. It's a reminder that even when Picasso's paintings look similar at a glance, each one carries its own experimental twist.