Defining what constitutes a “portrait” in Picasso’s work is not a simple matter. . . . It may emerge that, after this exhibition, it will be even harder than before to define what Picasso meant by a portrait.
—William Rubin, “Reflections on Picasso and Portraiture”

Of the many striking things about the exhibition called “Picasso and Portraiture: Representation and Transformation,”1 which William Rubin has organized at the Museum of Modern Art this spring, the most remarkable may be the large number of images that, by traditional standards, hardly qualify as portraits at all. It is of course the premise upon which the exhibition has been selected that, as Mr. Rubin writes on the first page of his “Reflections on Picasso and Portraiture,”...

 
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