.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Talking to Brassa in the 1960's about smoking, Picasso remarked to the photographer that, "Old age has forced us to give it up, but the craving is still there. It's the same with love."(quoted in Late Picasso, exh. cat., Tate Gallery, London 1988, p. 82.)
Executed in 1971, Homme la Pipe is a late work that depicts a dbonaire gentleman dressed in the cavalier style of the 17th Century enjoying his pipe. Like his many portraits of musketeers of his last years, as well as the many portraits by the 17th Century Dutch masters on which the style of these works is loosely based, Picasso celebrates the vice of smoking by depicting a character full of dandifed elegance and joie de vivre.
For Picasso, his musketeers and cavaliers were glamorous youthful alter egos, men full of bonhommie who were able to enjoy all the pleasures of life to the full. Undoubtedly missing these pleasures in his old age, Picasso sought to celebrate them through his painting and thus indulge in them by proxy
In Homme la Pipe Picasso has not only imitated the manner in which smoking was celebrated as an elegant and thouroughly modern habit in the 17th Century, but in the manner of the painting's execution he has imitated the flamboyant mastery over his materials that is also characteristic of a master like Frans Hals. In complete command of the paint, Picasso deliberately indulges in its messiness and allows the sweeps and swirls of paint to remain from the initial splash of their application. In a few swift but precise marks Picasso deftly captures the features and character of his cavalier and highlights him against a bold and cheerful yellow and white striped background that in the simplest of ways suggests an atmosphere of revelry.
Executed in 1971, Homme la Pipe is a late work that depicts a dbonaire gentleman dressed in the cavalier style of the 17th Century enjoying his pipe. Like his many portraits of musketeers of his last years, as well as the many portraits by the 17th Century Dutch masters on which the style of these works is loosely based, Picasso celebrates the vice of smoking by depicting a character full of dandifed elegance and joie de vivre.
For Picasso, his musketeers and cavaliers were glamorous youthful alter egos, men full of bonhommie who were able to enjoy all the pleasures of life to the full. Undoubtedly missing these pleasures in his old age, Picasso sought to celebrate them through his painting and thus indulge in them by proxy
In Homme la Pipe Picasso has not only imitated the manner in which smoking was celebrated as an elegant and thouroughly modern habit in the 17th Century, but in the manner of the painting's execution he has imitated the flamboyant mastery over his materials that is also characteristic of a master like Frans Hals. In complete command of the paint, Picasso deliberately indulges in its messiness and allows the sweeps and swirls of paint to remain from the initial splash of their application. In a few swift but precise marks Picasso deftly captures the features and character of his cavalier and highlights him against a bold and cheerful yellow and white striped background that in the simplest of ways suggests an atmosphere of revelry.