Woman with Headscarf

Technical information

Title : Woman with Headscarf
Date : c. 1950
Technique : Oil on canvas (HST)
Dimensions : 55 × 45 cm
Location : Private collection

Biographical / historical context

This painting is a second autonomous example from the “women with headscarf” cycle, alongside PR2-1950-006. The female model serves here as a pretext for a chromatic and architectured organisation, aiming at a new monumentality in a single figure.

The work seems to belong to a moment when Breuillaud consolidated this motif before returning, in subsequent years, to more complex scenes and groups.

Formal / stylistic description

The vertical format is tightly constructed: the compact, full figure stands out frontally. The face is reduced to closed planes, almost mask-like, and the multicoloured headscarf is organised in broken diagonals that energise the head and bust.

The dress is treated in large green colour fields; the background, more abstract, unfolds in geometric strata. The chromatic range (greens, yellows, taut reds) creates a Mediterranean luminosity and accentuates a statue-like effect, despite the modest dimensions.

Comparative analysis / related works

Compared to PR2-1950-006, the construction here appears more assured, more frontal and more architectured. The simplification of the face and the stability of the colour fields bring the work closer to certain silhouettes found in the “Olive Harvests” corpus (PR2-1950-012/013).

Within the internal logic of 1950, the painting likely comes after PR2-1950-006, as a consolidated version of the motif.

Justification of dating and attribution

The solidity of the colour fields, the pronounced simplification of the face and the absence of extreme fragmentation (as observed in 1952) place the work in 1950, likely in the second half of the year.

The stylistic characteristics fully belong to the PR2 phase of synthetic figuration and support attribution to André Breuillaud.

Provenance / exhibitions / publications

Private collection.