Head 1913

This collage, Head, by Pablo Picasso, is made of paper on card. With its ochre ground and clipped paper elements, you can feel him, in his studio, cutting and assembling the artwork. It’s so interesting how the textures play off each other. See the way he uses both smooth and subtly patterned papers? Look at the blue rectangular shape for the eye, interrupted by the strong black line. It’s like Picasso is laying bare the mechanics of seeing. And that simple curve suggesting the back of a head – it’s pure genius, suggesting so much with so little. You can see echoes of his Cubist explorations here, but maybe also hints of Matisse, another artist who understood the power of simple cut shapes. It all feels like an ongoing conversation. What does it say to you?