The Weeping Woman

Weeping Woman , is an oil on canvas painted by Pablo Picasso in France, 1937. Picasso was intrigued with the subject, and revisited the theme numerous times that year. This painting was the final and most elaborate of the series. It has been in the collection of the Tate Gallery in Liverpool since 1987. The Weeping Woman series is regarded as a thematic continuation of the tragedy depicted in Picasso's epic painting Guernica. In focusing on the image of a woman crying, the artist was no longer painting the effects of the Spanish Civil War directly, but rather referring to a singular... universal image of suffering. The model for the painting, indeed for the entire series, was Dora Maar, who was working as a professional photographer when Picasso met her in 1936; she was the only photographer allowed to document the successive stages of Guernica while Picasso painted it in 1937. Dora Maar was Picasso's mistress from 1936 until 1944. In the course of their relationship Picasso painted her in a number of guises, some realistic, some benign, others tortured or threatening. Picasso explained: "For me she's the weeping woman.
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