One summer I traveled to Halmstad, Sweden where I first encountered “Kvinnohuvud,”a 45 foot sculpture made of reinforced concrete by Pablo Picasso in 1971. Picasso created the piece based on one of the torn paper silhouettes he created. This particular piece is of his last wife, Jacqueline Roche. It is one of sixteen unique sculptures that the artist donated to cities around the world. The work was installed using the Norwegian concrete sculptor Carl Nesjar, who worked on behalf of Picasso.
I approached the tall structure straight on at first. I really was not sure what I was looking at. So I began to move around the sculpture and view it from other angles. It was wonderful how the light played in the openings. It was even more enjoyable to see how the head changed as one moved around it. From the front view you saw a small , almost masculine shaped head suspended on the upper right side. The rest was blank. When viewed from the left side one saw the perfect profile of a woman, including what appeared to be her eye lashes. From the right side, you once again saw the angular masculine head but , much like a flap book, it usually used the woman’s lips on the left side to complete the face. This formed a combination face that contained both masculine and feminine features, where as the left view providedonly feminine features. The statue invited the viewer to keep moving around it as very step gave you a new portrait to look at. The time of day also brought changes to the pieces. At sunrise it was brightly lit and operated as one collection of profiles. However, the afternoon and evening light cast great shadows of the entire sculpture, as well as shadows from the openings. It was as if there was a second art piece in the shadows. This light play, along with the varied views on the sculpture kept the viewer moving in order to see what new impression they could get from every angle. It simply could not be fully taken in from one position.
