Hear the Curator (y1969-131)

Pablo Picasso made a one-foot-high study model for Head of a Woman in 1962. Executed in painted and folded sheet metal, it was one of many modestly scaled sculptures that the artist created, inspired in part by the paper cutouts he made for his sister as a child. Head of a Woman was selected by Princeton University’s Putnam Memorial Collection Selections Committee for translation into a monumental sculpture; they chose Norwegian artist Carl Nesjar as intermediary in the neogitations with Picasso and executor of the sculpture. In 1969, Nesjar visited Picasso at his home in southern France, armed with photographs of a mock-up and site plans for the sculpture’s original location in front of McCormick Hall. Picasso gave his approval; a photograph of the mock-up, signed and inscribed “Bon à tirer pour Nesjar. Picasso,” served as the contract between the artist and the University. From building wooden forms to injecting the base with liquid concrete, Nesjar created the sculpture in the form of an open seminar for undergraduates, allowing students to observe and participate in the on-site recreation of a master’s work.