Naked Man and Woman, 1965

Pablo Picasso

Narrator: Naked Man and Woman was painted during a period when Picasso was repeatedly exploring the relationship between man and woman, artist and model, body and gaze. It belongs to a group of works in which erotic energy is paired with marked formal reduction: few brushstrokes, restrained colours and figures that seem shaped in a single gesture.

In contrast to earlier versions of the theme – where the man often represents the artist and the woman the model – the roles here are less hierarchical. The two bodies appear to mirror one another, formed by the same rhythm of contours and volumes. The painting reflects Picasso’s efforts to let form carry meaning without relying on narrative or symbolism.

The work belongs to the period following Picasso’s extensive explorations of Édouard Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass, where he gradually dissolved the boundary between the nude study and the scene of human intimacy. In Naked Man and Woman, this dialogue between painting and desire becomes a single gesture — an image in which the movement of the brush seems to unite the two bodies as much as it separates them.