help me identify a picasso painting

January 2, 2007 10:10 AM

In the film 'Pleasantville' Jeff Daniels has a book of paintings, one of which shows a weeping woman, presumably by Picasso. It's not Weeping Woman (1937) and I can't find a picture of it online. Does anyone know which painting it is??
posted by leibniz to Media & Arts (12 answers total)

Is it one of these?
posted by milkrate at 10:58 AM on January 2, 2007

Nope. It's stylised/cubist like some of his late works, and the face of the woman is pale blue.
posted by leibniz at 1:39 PM on January 2, 2007

Is there any way to post a still from the movie? He painted so many women in poses like this that it might be tricky narrowing it down just through sheer guess work, without actually seeing what it looks like. If not, can you describe it more specifically -- other major colors, horizontal/vertical orientation, other objects in painting, etc.?
posted by scody at 2:44 PM on January 2, 2007

I saw Pleasantville recently (for the fourth time! I don't know why I end up watching films I don't even like that much just because they're on television. I guess I'm just lazy). Is this the painting in the book? If it's not, it's very similar. Picasso painted a series of these cubist weeping women, including the one that was stolen
posted by hot soup girl at 3:54 PM on January 2, 2007

Er, sorry. (I am typing on a precariously placed laptop, and didn't mean to post that weirdly unfinished comment. Bah.) This is the painting I meant to link to. And this is the art theft I was referring to.

Ahem. I'll get me coat.
posted by hot soup girl at 3:59 PM on January 2, 2007

Oh, and also, I didn't read your question properly, and linked to the painting you already know isn't the one you're looking for. I really do apologise. My brain appears to be broken.
posted by hot soup girl at 4:03 PM on January 2, 2007

The same question is posted on the imdb board--apparently the caption on the movie is "woman stretched out with arms under neck on a red bed."

I don't know what painting that is, or what that would translate into as a likely title. This has stretched out arms & a red bed; or perhaps this?
posted by neda at 5:16 PM on January 2, 2007

Well, there's Femme au Fauteuil Rouge, which shows a woman with her arms behind her neck on a red lounge, but she's certainly not weeping.
posted by scody at 5:32 PM on January 2, 2007

I took a screen capture of the painting. The title given under the image is "Woman Stretched Out with Arms Under Neck on a Red Bed." A search for that title yielded no results, but the picture may help someone identify it.
posted by eunoia at 7:59 PM on January 2, 2007

It might not be a real painting. A few months ago I saw a tv show or movie (I can't remember) that prominently featured a work by a real artist, except that the artist never actually made the art. They explained that in the credits.

Maybe "'Woman stretched out with arms under neck on a red bed' is not an actual painting by Pablo Picasso," is somewhere in the movie credits?
posted by sevenless at 11:44 PM on January 2, 2007

Thanks for the screen capture eunoia, I had remembered the picture the other way round!

It's possible that the picture is not really a picasso. The book itself "the world of art" by Edward Bissell, is a fake. But it seems that the painting isn't, given how many other real pictures they use in the book, such as a Rembrant self-portrait.
posted by leibniz at 1:19 AM on January 3, 2007

Dormeuse aux Persiennes (which translates, I believe, to "sleeping woman with shutters")
posted by alyxstarr at 7:14 AM on January 3, 2007