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Lot Essay
Le transformateur was painted on 10 June 1953, and is therefore one of the first of a string of landscape pictures that Pablo Picasso created during that time showing approximately the same view in Vallauris, where he was then living. It was five years earlier that he had acquired the Villa La Galloise, moving there with Françoise Gilot. While they were mainly based there, Françoise would have two of his children. The villa was near the top of a hill in Vallauris, the centre of the pottery industry which Picasso would do so much to transform. It was set within several acres of grounds, giving the artist space and greenery.
This picture was previously in the collection of Herman C. Goldsmith, a collector who owned several works by Picasso as well as others by Henri Matisse and Giorgio Morandi. Picasso's landscapes form crucial milestones throughout his career. In many of his homes, be it in Paris, its environs, or in the South of France, he would exert a certain seigneurial sense of possessiveness through his paintings of the interior or exterior. This is apparently the case in Le transformateur and the pictures that came after it, also exploring the tall tower-like building and the leaning tree that dominate the composition here. In many of those pictures, the outlines of these features would become increasingly abstract and stylised. Here, by contrast, Picasso's incredible sense of energy and enthusiasm is patently visible in the swirls of paint with which he has rendered the foliage in particular. Meanwhile, in the background, the cables that hang across the picture add a sense of man-made rigidity, bold horizontals that contrast with the more explosive depiction of the greenery and the sky.
The Summer of 1953 was to prove the end of Picasso's life with Françoise in La Galloise; she and their children would leave towards the end of the year. This then dates from a period of relative calm before the storm. That calm, however, had been punctuated by the scandal surrounding his depiction of the late Communist leader, Josef Stalin. Picasso's drawing of the Russian politician's head had been published and was subsequently denounced by the Spanish artist's fellow Communists. He was besieged by them and by journalists alike; perhaps it is the sense of security that he had in his Vallauris home that is captured in the vibrant Le transformateur.
This picture was previously in the collection of Herman C. Goldsmith, a collector who owned several works by Picasso as well as others by Henri Matisse and Giorgio Morandi. Picasso's landscapes form crucial milestones throughout his career. In many of his homes, be it in Paris, its environs, or in the South of France, he would exert a certain seigneurial sense of possessiveness through his paintings of the interior or exterior. This is apparently the case in Le transformateur and the pictures that came after it, also exploring the tall tower-like building and the leaning tree that dominate the composition here. In many of those pictures, the outlines of these features would become increasingly abstract and stylised. Here, by contrast, Picasso's incredible sense of energy and enthusiasm is patently visible in the swirls of paint with which he has rendered the foliage in particular. Meanwhile, in the background, the cables that hang across the picture add a sense of man-made rigidity, bold horizontals that contrast with the more explosive depiction of the greenery and the sky.
The Summer of 1953 was to prove the end of Picasso's life with Françoise in La Galloise; she and their children would leave towards the end of the year. This then dates from a period of relative calm before the storm. That calm, however, had been punctuated by the scandal surrounding his depiction of the late Communist leader, Josef Stalin. Picasso's drawing of the Russian politician's head had been published and was subsequently denounced by the Spanish artist's fellow Communists. He was besieged by them and by journalists alike; perhaps it is the sense of security that he had in his Vallauris home that is captured in the vibrant Le transformateur.