The Three Lives of Picasso’s Woman in White (1923)

The story of Woman in White’s journey from Paris through the New York museum ecosystem is a complex one, interwoven with that of the biography of Museum of Modern Art co-founder Lillie P. Bliss (1864-1931), the enduring symbiotic relationship between MoMA and The Metropolitan Museum of Art; and last but not least, the evolution of the modernist canon. This paper uses archival material to examine the key events from Bliss's 1927 viewing of the work in London and later acquisition from New York’s Kraushaar Galleries; to the 1929 foundation of MoMA and Woman in White’s deployment in the early exhibitions that established the museum’s reputation; to Bliss's visionary bequest of her collection at her death in 1931 and its underlying endorsement of Met/MoMA collaboration; and ultimately, to the surprising last minute inclusion of Woman in White in the asset exchange of the Three Museum Agreement of 1947-1952, a cooperative and financial accord among MoMA, The Met and the Whitney Museum of American Art that was originally conceived as a device for establishing territorial boundaries that should have positioned Picasso clearly within MoMA’s – not The Met’s – remit. At its essence, the story is a parable of how private collecting, museum patronage, and institutional policies regarding seemingly prosaic issues like funding and collections management have shaped the canon, and in turn, the public perception of quality and value in art.