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1. Pablo Picasso Portrait of Olga in an Armchair 1917
2. Pablo Picasso The Dream 1932
3. Pablo Picasso Portrait of Dora Maar 1937
4. Pablo Picasso Portrait of a Woman (Françoise Gilot) 1944
5. Pablo Picasso Self-portrait with Nude 1901
6. Pablo Picasso Minotaur Caressing the Hand of a Sleeping Girl with his Face 1933
7. Pablo Picasso Wearing a bulls head mask (Gjon Mili, Life magazine, 1949)
8. Pablo Picasso Une Anatomie (title page) 1933

Women, in all their manifestations: mother, wife, mistress, sister, lover, etc., came to be the most dominate theme in Picasso's work. In fact, virtually all of his visual narratives can be distilled into two primary themes: women as muse or protagonist (Figs.1-4); and self-image (Figs.5-7). All of his other narratives, in one way or another, feed this diptych. This gender imbalance in Picasso’s oeuvre is poetically revealed in a set of 27 drawings, which he created in 1933 under the collective title Une Anatomie - Dessin de Picasso (Fig.8). They were not initially exhibited in a gallery, but came to public attention via the 1933 inaugural edition of the Surrealist magazine Minotaure. Une Anatomie's title page depicts a reclining man, a young child and a fecund female figure standing next to a beach bathing hut. Although seldom discussed since their publication these drawings went on to have a significant impact on the development of twentieth century sculpture.

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