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Lot Essay
The woman whom Picasso painted and drew most frequently during the early months of the Second World War and the subsequent German Occupation was his lover Dora Maar. The artist made her his tragic, sacrificial muse, famously subjecting her visage to unrelenting depredations on canvas and paper that mirror the violence and terror of that era. Recognizable in other portraits are Marie-Thérèse Walter, the mother of Picasso’s daughter Maya, and occasionally Nusch Éluard, the wife of Picasso’s close friend and favorite poet.
Among other faces, including some unknown to us today, there is an unsung heroine, an exemplary woman who remained by Picasso’s side for three-and-a-half decades while his lovers came and went. Displaying her signature flourish of a large flower pinned in her hair, she is the subject of this exquisitely stylish drawing, which Picasso propitiously signed and dated on New Year’s Day, 1944. Her name is Inès Sassier, née Odorisi. She served Picasso as his housekeeper, and became a trusted friend and confidante.
In his recollection of a meeting with Picasso on 9 April 1944, in the artist’s rue des Grands-Augustins studio, the photographer Brassaï wrote, “Suddenly, the door opens. Inès enters, holding springtime in her arms: an armful of lavender and white lilies. Picasso: ‘Isn’t Inès beautiful? Have you seen the color of her eyes? You should photograph her one day.’ The graceful young woman is decorating the room with flowers. For about ten years, she has often opened the door for me. With her matte complexion, her long black hair, her always-beaming smile, and her flowered dresses, she could be taken for a Polynesian vahine” (Conversations with Picasso, Chicago, 1999, p. 156).
Dora had noticed Inès while vacationing with Picasso at the Hôtel Vaste Horizon in Mougins during the summer of 1938. Inés, then sixteen, “‘was working there with her elder sister,’ Picasso told Brassaï. ‘Inés as chambermaid and her sister as cook. She was beautiful. She was kind. So we took her and brought her back to Paris’” (ibid.). He also returned with a painting he had executed of her (Zervos, vol. 9, no. 209). At the beginning of the war, while Picasso and his entourage were staying in Royan, Inès moved back to Mougins, where she married Gustave Sassier. She returned with her husband to Paris in 1942, and moved into a small apartment below Picasso's rooms and studio on the rue des Grands-Augustins. Their son Gérard, today an artist, was born in 1946.
Inès’ joyous spirit and selflessly caring attention were a great comfort to Picasso and Dora during the war. She applied her considerable culinary skills to making the most of meager, rationed fare. She was also a blessing to Marie-Thérèse and Maya, who lived on the boulevard Henri IV. “My father had unlimited trust in Inès, like he had in his friend Sabartés,” Maya later recalled. “She is for me a wonderful memory from my youth. She was a true ray of light for us, always happy, always gracious” (in correspondence with Christie’s London, 30 March 2002; sale, 27 June 2002, lots 392-393).
Inès witnessed the stormy end of Picasso’s affair with Dora, and was present for Picasso’s rediscovery of family life with children after the war, during his relationship with Françoise Gilot, but this also ended badly. Stability returned, beginning in the mid-1950s, during l’époque Jacqueline. Inès' quarters became a shrine to Picasso's art, crammed with etchings, gouaches, and the portraits of her that he presented as birthday gifts, testimonies to the durability of one of the few genuinely lasting relationships in the artist’s life.
Among other faces, including some unknown to us today, there is an unsung heroine, an exemplary woman who remained by Picasso’s side for three-and-a-half decades while his lovers came and went. Displaying her signature flourish of a large flower pinned in her hair, she is the subject of this exquisitely stylish drawing, which Picasso propitiously signed and dated on New Year’s Day, 1944. Her name is Inès Sassier, née Odorisi. She served Picasso as his housekeeper, and became a trusted friend and confidante.
In his recollection of a meeting with Picasso on 9 April 1944, in the artist’s rue des Grands-Augustins studio, the photographer Brassaï wrote, “Suddenly, the door opens. Inès enters, holding springtime in her arms: an armful of lavender and white lilies. Picasso: ‘Isn’t Inès beautiful? Have you seen the color of her eyes? You should photograph her one day.’ The graceful young woman is decorating the room with flowers. For about ten years, she has often opened the door for me. With her matte complexion, her long black hair, her always-beaming smile, and her flowered dresses, she could be taken for a Polynesian vahine” (Conversations with Picasso, Chicago, 1999, p. 156).
Dora had noticed Inès while vacationing with Picasso at the Hôtel Vaste Horizon in Mougins during the summer of 1938. Inés, then sixteen, “‘was working there with her elder sister,’ Picasso told Brassaï. ‘Inés as chambermaid and her sister as cook. She was beautiful. She was kind. So we took her and brought her back to Paris’” (ibid.). He also returned with a painting he had executed of her (Zervos, vol. 9, no. 209). At the beginning of the war, while Picasso and his entourage were staying in Royan, Inès moved back to Mougins, where she married Gustave Sassier. She returned with her husband to Paris in 1942, and moved into a small apartment below Picasso's rooms and studio on the rue des Grands-Augustins. Their son Gérard, today an artist, was born in 1946.
Inès’ joyous spirit and selflessly caring attention were a great comfort to Picasso and Dora during the war. She applied her considerable culinary skills to making the most of meager, rationed fare. She was also a blessing to Marie-Thérèse and Maya, who lived on the boulevard Henri IV. “My father had unlimited trust in Inès, like he had in his friend Sabartés,” Maya later recalled. “She is for me a wonderful memory from my youth. She was a true ray of light for us, always happy, always gracious” (in correspondence with Christie’s London, 30 March 2002; sale, 27 June 2002, lots 392-393).
Inès witnessed the stormy end of Picasso’s affair with Dora, and was present for Picasso’s rediscovery of family life with children after the war, during his relationship with Françoise Gilot, but this also ended badly. Stability returned, beginning in the mid-1950s, during l’époque Jacqueline. Inès' quarters became a shrine to Picasso's art, crammed with etchings, gouaches, and the portraits of her that he presented as birthday gifts, testimonies to the durability of one of the few genuinely lasting relationships in the artist’s life.