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Lot Essay
Picasso painted this design for a theater poster during the summer of 1904, during his fourth and--as it would prove--permanent stay in Paris. Each of his previous trips to the capital of the art world had ended in poverty and disappointment, leaving him no choice but to return home to Barcelona, take stock of his situation and plan anew. When Picasso learned that the ceramicist Paco Durrio was vacating his top floor studio in a dilapidated artist's building known as the Bateau-Lavoir, at 13, rue Ravignan in Montmartre, he jumped at the opportunity. At the end of April Picasso arrived in Paris, in the company of his friend Sebastiá Junyer Vidal. He was determined to stick it out this time, and achieve the success he felt his talents deserved. After a few weeks Junyer became discouraged and returned to Barcelona, while Picasso stayed on and struggled to make it on his own.
Among his contacts from previous visits, Picasso immediately looked up the successful journalist and writer Gustave Coquiot. Picasso became friendly with Coquiot during his second stay in Paris during May-December 1901, the highlight of which had been the large show the dealer Vollard gave Picasso in his gallery, the young painter's first notable but nonetheless short-lived success. Coquiot wrote the catalogue preface. During Picasso's third sojourn in Paris, in late 1903, Coquiot commissioned him to produce an album of drawings portraying various well-known beauties of the demi-monde. Many of Picasso's chosen subjects were not interested, however, and he had to abandon the project. Two fine portraits of the dancer Jane Avril are the most memorable of the drawings which have survived (one of which was sold, Christie's, New York, 9 November 2006, lot 118).
Coquiot always had his hand in some project or other, and during the summer of 1904 he was collaborating on melodramatic plays with Jean Lorrain, a symbolist writer and well-known dandy about town. Coquiot put Picasso in touch with the publisher Pierre Valdagneat, whose Librairie Ollendorf was bringing out the book of the latest Coquiot-Lorrain play, Hotel de l'Ouest, Chambre 22, which had premiered on 28 May 1904 at the Théâtre du Grand-Guignol, notoriously famous for its sensational productions of graphic horror, murder and mayhem. Picasso painted a watercolor design for the book jacket (Zervos, vol. 1, no. 213), but this project progressed no further. Coquiot then asked Picasso to provide a poster design for his next collaboration with Lorrain, Sainte Roulette, which was scheduled to open at the Théâtre Molière on 10 October 1904. As a preliminary study Picasso painted the watercolor L'Étrangleur ("The Strangler"; Zervos, vol. 6, no. 616), from which he produced a complete poster design with text, the present watercolor. For reasons unknown, the director of the theater rejected it. Picasso then concluded that he must concentrate on his own work--to paint as he wanted and for no one else--and to find ways of selling it. John Richardson has written:
"If during the summer of 1904 Picasso's work was afflicted with false starts and backward looks, it could have been because he was prone, as émigrés often are, to bouts of anguish, insecurity and loneliness. His immediate prospects were bleak; he was still chronically penniless and, like most young Spaniards, suspected by the authorities of being an anarchist or terrorist... Fortunately the twenty-three-year-old had developed resilience and, so long as his work went well, could usually switch from black gloom to ecstatic joy, from childish fun to intense concentration in a matter of minutes. Fortunately, too, he had managed to develop a certain manipulative cunning in his dealings with the world... Disarming charm, youthful charisma and ruthlessness, coupled with demonic energy and fanatical drive, would see him through to glory" (A Life of Picasso: The Early Years, 1881-1906, New York, 1991, p. 302).
Among his contacts from previous visits, Picasso immediately looked up the successful journalist and writer Gustave Coquiot. Picasso became friendly with Coquiot during his second stay in Paris during May-December 1901, the highlight of which had been the large show the dealer Vollard gave Picasso in his gallery, the young painter's first notable but nonetheless short-lived success. Coquiot wrote the catalogue preface. During Picasso's third sojourn in Paris, in late 1903, Coquiot commissioned him to produce an album of drawings portraying various well-known beauties of the demi-monde. Many of Picasso's chosen subjects were not interested, however, and he had to abandon the project. Two fine portraits of the dancer Jane Avril are the most memorable of the drawings which have survived (one of which was sold, Christie's, New York, 9 November 2006, lot 118).
Coquiot always had his hand in some project or other, and during the summer of 1904 he was collaborating on melodramatic plays with Jean Lorrain, a symbolist writer and well-known dandy about town. Coquiot put Picasso in touch with the publisher Pierre Valdagneat, whose Librairie Ollendorf was bringing out the book of the latest Coquiot-Lorrain play, Hotel de l'Ouest, Chambre 22, which had premiered on 28 May 1904 at the Théâtre du Grand-Guignol, notoriously famous for its sensational productions of graphic horror, murder and mayhem. Picasso painted a watercolor design for the book jacket (Zervos, vol. 1, no. 213), but this project progressed no further. Coquiot then asked Picasso to provide a poster design for his next collaboration with Lorrain, Sainte Roulette, which was scheduled to open at the Théâtre Molière on 10 October 1904. As a preliminary study Picasso painted the watercolor L'Étrangleur ("The Strangler"; Zervos, vol. 6, no. 616), from which he produced a complete poster design with text, the present watercolor. For reasons unknown, the director of the theater rejected it. Picasso then concluded that he must concentrate on his own work--to paint as he wanted and for no one else--and to find ways of selling it. John Richardson has written:
"If during the summer of 1904 Picasso's work was afflicted with false starts and backward looks, it could have been because he was prone, as émigrés often are, to bouts of anguish, insecurity and loneliness. His immediate prospects were bleak; he was still chronically penniless and, like most young Spaniards, suspected by the authorities of being an anarchist or terrorist... Fortunately the twenty-three-year-old had developed resilience and, so long as his work went well, could usually switch from black gloom to ecstatic joy, from childish fun to intense concentration in a matter of minutes. Fortunately, too, he had managed to develop a certain manipulative cunning in his dealings with the world... Disarming charm, youthful charisma and ruthlessness, coupled with demonic energy and fanatical drive, would see him through to glory" (A Life of Picasso: The Early Years, 1881-1906, New York, 1991, p. 302).