Man with a Straw Hat and an Ice-Cream - Pablo Picasso

A striking 1938 portrait by Pablo Picasso, featuring a figure in blue tones with a straw hat and an ice-cream against a dark background.

Painted in 1938, this portrait by Pablo Picasso demonstrates the artist's late-career approach to the human figure. The subject is rendered with a flattened, multi-perspective facial structure, a hallmark of his stylistic development. The figure, depicted in a striking shade of blue, holds a conical object, identified as an ice-cream, against a stark black background.

The composition relies on heavy, graphic lines and a high-contrast palette. Picasso employs geometric shapes to define the features, such as the triangular beard and the star-like motif on the cheek. The straw hat is treated with a decorative, almost woven quality, providing a textural contrast to the smooth, saturated blue of the skin. The eyes are positioned to suggest multiple viewpoints simultaneously, a technique that disrupts traditional portraiture conventions.

This work reflects the artist's interest in the grotesque and the playful. By placing a mundane object like an ice-cream within such a distorted, mask-like face, Picasso creates a tension between the familiar and the surreal. The date, 30.4.38, is inscribed directly onto the canvas, a common practice for the artist during this period. The work avoids naturalistic representation, opting instead for a symbolic and expressive arrangement of form and colour. It remains a clear example of how Picasso manipulated the human visage to convey character through abstraction rather than anatomical accuracy.