‘La femme qui pleure I’ is one of the most important prints of the 20th century. The woman depicted relates to Picasso’s famed mural ‘Guernica’, the iconic anti-war painting which commemorates the German Air Force’s bombing, at the behest of Franco, on 26th April 1937, the Basque town of Guernica. The event caused outcry internationally and fuelled by his abhorrence of the atrocity Picasso created Guernica as his submission for the Spanish Pavillion at the International Exposition that summer. An image of the weeping woman was originally inserted into the lower right of the painting, but removed when Picasso felt the image might dominate the work.

The image obsessed Picasso, with the artist producing thirty six works on the subject between May and October 1937. In all, Picasso depicts his muse Dora Maar in various states of anguish, in the present etching she is seen in a silent scream, weeping for the destruction of her country and lives lost.

Picasso created ‘La femme qui pleure I’ in July 1937 at Roger Lacourière’s studio in Paris. He made seven states of the print although only editioned two, the third and the seventh, with the present work coming from the third. The remaining five states were produced as artist proofs in an editions of one or two, and now largely kept at Musée Picasso in Paris. A total of forty two prints were created across all seven states, with nineteen in museum collections.

A number of museums have editions of the third state in their collections including MoMA, New York; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid and Musée Picasso, Paris. Picasso or his heirs kept edition numbers eight to fifteen of the third state in their private collection for many years. This current etching was purchased from the Estate and eventually entered the collection of Alan and Marianne Schwartz in the 1980s. The Schwartzs’ had one of the largest private holdings of graphic art in the US, with the Detroit Insitute of Arts dedicating an exhibition to their collection in 1990.