Three Women (Les trois femmes) 1922

With quick, dark hatching, Pablo Picasso etched ‘Three Women’ into a plate. The act of incising itself must have been so invigorating, so immediate. I love to imagine Picasso, with his almost violent energy, bearing down on that plate, digging in. What was he thinking? Was he thinking of Ingres, perhaps? That central figure, so classical, seems almost embarrassed to be there. The woman on the left is lost in thought; the one on the right, shrouded in darkness, seems to long for somewhere else entirely. Each mark, each line, seems to vibrate with its own nervous energy. It’s hard to pin Picasso down, isn’t it? This etching, with its nods to the past and winks towards the future, shows how the dialogue between artists across time creates a space of ambiguity, allowing for endless interpretations.