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Lot Essay
Maya Widmaier-Picasso has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
Claude Picasso has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
Picasso's principal vision of three female figures in the present drawing is an anatomical deconstruction, notable, despite its preparatory nature, for its razor-sharp clarity and concentration. As always in Picasso's drawings there are few lines that prove extraneous, ill-considered or out-of-place, with little blottings of ink bearing witness to the clarity with which the artist applied himself to rendering this richly facetted image.
There are several sources from which Picasso likely drew inspiration for this basket-weave technique in his drawings and paintings. From his childhood Picasso recalled the domestic activities of knitting and weaving. During his summers in the Midi he watched peasants making baskets, matting, plaiting and thatching straw and reed cane for various uses, fishermen tying and mending their nets. He studied the embroidery and appliqué which decorated regional costumes on display at the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 Exposition Internationale, not far from where Guernica had been installed. Picasso made his own contributions to the art of weaving, having provided designs in 1934 and 1938 for Marie Cuttoli's famous hand-woven tapestries. There were intimately personal references as well: Marie-Thérèse, at this time Picasso's mistress and the mother of his daughter Maya, was fond of wearing knitted garments and berets, as well as straw sun hats. The caning motif had already made its debut in Picasso's work, back in 1912, when the artist glued printed chair caning on an oval canvas, and painted partly over and around it, thus creating one of the first collages (Zervos, vol. 2, no 294; Musée Picasso, Paris).
It should be pointed out, moreover, that Picasso was living with, or more precisely under, caning patterns for much of the time he spent at the Hôtel Vaste Horizon. Picasso, Dora, his other mistress, and their friends relaxed and enjoyed their meals under the shade of the hotel's cane arbor--sous les cannisses. This canopy of thatched reeds cast striped shadows on everyone and everything beneath it. Dora delighted in this magical, transforming effect, and took numerous photographs of Picasso and his guests during the summer of 1937, showing them overlaid with zebra-stripes that trace the volumes of exposed body parts and the folds of their clothing in dizzying patterns of umbrage. Once Picasso and Dora had returned to Paris, and she developed the photographs she had taken, Picasso no doubt studied the bizarre visual effect of the striping with great interest, and during the following spring he began to explore this idea more extensively than before in his drawing, such as in his stunning portrait of Dora in his painting of December 1938 (fig. 1).
(fig. 1) Pablo Picasso, Femme assise dans un jardin, 1938. Private collection.
Claude Picasso has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
Picasso's principal vision of three female figures in the present drawing is an anatomical deconstruction, notable, despite its preparatory nature, for its razor-sharp clarity and concentration. As always in Picasso's drawings there are few lines that prove extraneous, ill-considered or out-of-place, with little blottings of ink bearing witness to the clarity with which the artist applied himself to rendering this richly facetted image.
There are several sources from which Picasso likely drew inspiration for this basket-weave technique in his drawings and paintings. From his childhood Picasso recalled the domestic activities of knitting and weaving. During his summers in the Midi he watched peasants making baskets, matting, plaiting and thatching straw and reed cane for various uses, fishermen tying and mending their nets. He studied the embroidery and appliqué which decorated regional costumes on display at the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 Exposition Internationale, not far from where Guernica had been installed. Picasso made his own contributions to the art of weaving, having provided designs in 1934 and 1938 for Marie Cuttoli's famous hand-woven tapestries. There were intimately personal references as well: Marie-Thérèse, at this time Picasso's mistress and the mother of his daughter Maya, was fond of wearing knitted garments and berets, as well as straw sun hats. The caning motif had already made its debut in Picasso's work, back in 1912, when the artist glued printed chair caning on an oval canvas, and painted partly over and around it, thus creating one of the first collages (Zervos, vol. 2, no 294; Musée Picasso, Paris).
It should be pointed out, moreover, that Picasso was living with, or more precisely under, caning patterns for much of the time he spent at the Hôtel Vaste Horizon. Picasso, Dora, his other mistress, and their friends relaxed and enjoyed their meals under the shade of the hotel's cane arbor--sous les cannisses. This canopy of thatched reeds cast striped shadows on everyone and everything beneath it. Dora delighted in this magical, transforming effect, and took numerous photographs of Picasso and his guests during the summer of 1937, showing them overlaid with zebra-stripes that trace the volumes of exposed body parts and the folds of their clothing in dizzying patterns of umbrage. Once Picasso and Dora had returned to Paris, and she developed the photographs she had taken, Picasso no doubt studied the bizarre visual effect of the striping with great interest, and during the following spring he began to explore this idea more extensively than before in his drawing, such as in his stunning portrait of Dora in his painting of December 1938 (fig. 1).
(fig. 1) Pablo Picasso, Femme assise dans un jardin, 1938. Private collection.