Pablo Picasso

La Femme qui pleure [Weeping Woman]

About this artwork

This is one of Picasso’s most iconic images. It was created as one of the main studies for a huge mural commissioned for the Spanish Pavilion of the 1937 International Exhibition in Paris. Picasso chose to focus on the horror of the bombing of the small Basque town of Guernica, bombed at General Franco’s request. Some 1700 people were killed or wounded. The study of a weeping woman, her mouth fixed in a silent scream of pain, is a motif to convey the plight of the Spanish people of the Basque region. Picasso experimented with the image of the weeping woman in several prints and, most famously, in a painting. This print was purchased directly from the artist by the English artist and collector Roland Penrose. It is inscribed ‘For Penrose.’

Updated before 2020

see media
  • artist:
  • title:
    La Femme qui pleure [Weeping Woman]
  • date created:
    1937
  • materials:
    Drypoint, aquatint and etching on paper, 7th state (5/15)
  • measurements:
    Plate size: 69.20 x 49.50 cm; paper size: 77.20 x 56.90 cm (framed: 108.30 x 87.10 x 4.10 cm)
  • object type:
  • credit line:
    Accepted by H.M. Government in lieu of Inheritance Tax on the Estate of Joanna Drew and allocated by H.M. Government to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art 2005
  • accession number:
    GMA 4774
  • gallery:
  • subject:
  • artwork photographed by:
    Antonia Reeve
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Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso