The Weeping Woman (French: La Femme qui pleure[1]) is a series of oil on canvas[2] paintings by Pablo Picasso, the last of which was created in late 1937.

Another Weeping Woman painting created on 18 October 1937 is housed at the National Gallery of Victoria and was involved in a high-profile political art theft.

Picasso created The Weeping Woman during the Spanish Civil War, which broke out in July 1936, when General Franco revolted against the Republican government.

Picasso's aim in producing Guernica was to portray the immediate shock and horror of the destruction, rather than the tears of mourning that would arise in the aftermath.

Between 8 June and 6 July 1937, Picasso produced a dozen drawings and four oil paintings depicting the weeping woman.

The poet Paul Éluard introduced Picasso to Maar while she was working as a photographer on Jean Renoir's film Le Crime de Monsieur Lange.

She was responsible for arranging the use of the studio on 7 rue des Grands Augustins, where Picasso created Guernica and also contributed to its development.

Picasso portrayed her as a tranquil figure until his creation of the weeping women paintings, which displayed a noticeable change in his approach to her.

Picasso portrayed Maar in numerous portraits during their time together, often depicting her in tears, a motif that would lead to her being primarily known as his "weeping woman", rather than as an artist in her own right.

"[9] Françoise Gilot described Maar as, "by nature nervous, anxious and tormented", who suffered from emotional vulnerability and frequent upsets in this period.

Picasso used bright colours and bold lines to convey the figure in a complex series of angular shapes and planes.

In addition to the confused mass of hands, mouth, teeth, handkerchief and tears in the centre of the painting, Picasso also depicted the eyes with great analytical attention.

The Tate draws particular attention to the childlike but striking rendition of the eyes, which have been depicted like boats or overflowing saucers and have been placed on the peaks of the handkerchief to provide an intense exploration of physical and emotional distress.

[8] The architecture of the weeping woman's face is very distinctive and shares many design elements with the four female figures depicted in Guernica.

However, The Weeping Woman is distinct from these figures in the way that Picasso used cubist forms of fragmentation to depict the face in a series of angular planes, rather than the flat, curvilinear images in Guernica.

[8] A further interpretation of the painting is that the woman illustrates the Christian motif of the Virgin Mary mourning her dead son, Jesus Christ.

Marilyn McCully opined that the weeping woman works are related to the Mater Dolorosa, Our Lady of Sorrows stating, "In their essence as images of art, their emotional power lies in their origins among the painted wood, life-sized statues of the Madonna carried in Spain in religious processions, whose tears are jewels that sparkle as they run down their cheeks, and whose garments are real lace, velvets and silver - at once real and other worldly".

[9]She is moreover a universal figure not attached to any single event nor even to her cataclysmic century as a whole - she is the timelessly universal messenger of unfathomable and inconsolable human sorrow, the bearer of an elemental emotion that is as miraculously and beautifully human to contemplate as it is disturbing to behold.Jonathan Jones for The Guardian noted that the painting demonstrates both hope and fury.

Picasso's biographer, Roland Penrose, who was the previous owner, considered it to be an illustration of optimism, perhaps depicting the healing power of mourning.

In evidence of this, Jones pointed to elements of the painting, such as the flower in the woman's hat, the river of her flowing hair and the transformation of her right ear into a bird sipping her tear, a possible representation of new life.

[19] On 7 April 1969, The Weeping Woman, alongside 25 other paintings, was stolen from the Penrose home at Hornton Street, London.

The theft received a great deal of publicity and was discussed by Roland Penrose on BBC's 24 Hours programme on 8 April 1969.

Penrose was quoted in the Daily Mirror stating, "My most prized picture was a Picasso called "A Woman Weeping" which I bought just after he painted it.

Frances Morris, Head of Collections at Tate Modern has described it as "a highlight of Surrealism" and "an amazing depiction of female grief and a metaphor for the tragedy of Spain.

[21] The purchase was controversial because of its very high price tag, with some local artists complaining that the money could have been spent on Australian art.