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Lot Essay
A work of compelling simplicity and extraordinary technical virtuosity, Pomme is a delicately rendered watercolour of 1909 that demonstrates Pablo Picasso’s early cubist explorations. Composed from faceted planes of soft colour, this quotidian object is transformed into a work of startling three-dimensionality, its form seeming no longer organic but appearing as if carved from stone. Picasso would incorporate pieces of fruit such as this into a series of still-life paintings the same year, as he continued to break down form and radically reconstruct it in a series of interlocking planes, breaking free from illusionistic methods of representation and instead evoking multiple viewpoints of objects on the canvas.
The simplicity and restraint of this solitary piece of fruit is immediately reminiscent of Paul Cézanne’s still-lifes. Indeed, Pomme is in many ways indebted to the great French painter. The art of Cézanne was a crucial reference point for Picasso in the early development of Cubism. Having been primarily influenced by the primitive art of Africa and Oceania, by the end of 1907 and throughout 1908, Picasso increasingly turned to Cézanne, finding his acute visual observation and deconstruction of illusionistic representation a powerful impetus and influence for his own spatial and pictorial explorations. ‘[Cézanne] was my one and only master’, Picasso stated later in 1943, ‘It was the same with all of us – he was like our father. It was he who protected us’ (Picasso, quoted in J. Richardson, A Life with Picasso, Volume II: The Painter of Modern Life, London, 2009, p. 52). In the spring of 1907, the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris held an exhibition of Cezanne’s luminous late watercolours. Picasso was mesmerised by these works and particularly by Cézanne’s ability to integrate the ground into the composition itself. In Pomme, Picasso has intensified Cézanne’s renowned ‘constructive’ brushstrokes, using angular, linear hatching to invoke a sense of volume and exaggerated three-dimensionality. Even the shadow that is cast from this singular protagonist appears solid, a reflection of Picasso’s intense investigation and analysis into the nature and construction of pictorial space that he was undertaking at this time.
This exquisite watercolour was first in the collection of one of the leading collectors of Cubism in the early 20th Century, the French industrialist, Roger Dutilleul. Initially, Dutilleul was a particular admirer of Cézanne but, upon starting to collect art in the opening years of the new century, he soon found that he was unable to afford works by the Post-Impressionist master. Instead, Dutilleul turned to the avant-garde, finding, particularly in the work of Braque and Picasso, a close likeness to Cézanne. Starting with a Fauvist Braque, Dutilleul soon became one of the foremost collectors of Cubism in Paris, forging a close friendship with the leading cubist dealer of the time, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. Indeed, it is highly likely that Dutilleul acquired the present Pomme from Kahnweiler. By the outbreak of the First World War, Dutilleul had acquired an astonishing collection of some of the greatest cubist works by Braque and Picasso, as well as work by Léger, Derain and Vlaminck. During the war, Dutilleul met Modigliani and would soon become the leading patron of the artist.
The simplicity and restraint of this solitary piece of fruit is immediately reminiscent of Paul Cézanne’s still-lifes. Indeed, Pomme is in many ways indebted to the great French painter. The art of Cézanne was a crucial reference point for Picasso in the early development of Cubism. Having been primarily influenced by the primitive art of Africa and Oceania, by the end of 1907 and throughout 1908, Picasso increasingly turned to Cézanne, finding his acute visual observation and deconstruction of illusionistic representation a powerful impetus and influence for his own spatial and pictorial explorations. ‘[Cézanne] was my one and only master’, Picasso stated later in 1943, ‘It was the same with all of us – he was like our father. It was he who protected us’ (Picasso, quoted in J. Richardson, A Life with Picasso, Volume II: The Painter of Modern Life, London, 2009, p. 52). In the spring of 1907, the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris held an exhibition of Cezanne’s luminous late watercolours. Picasso was mesmerised by these works and particularly by Cézanne’s ability to integrate the ground into the composition itself. In Pomme, Picasso has intensified Cézanne’s renowned ‘constructive’ brushstrokes, using angular, linear hatching to invoke a sense of volume and exaggerated three-dimensionality. Even the shadow that is cast from this singular protagonist appears solid, a reflection of Picasso’s intense investigation and analysis into the nature and construction of pictorial space that he was undertaking at this time.
This exquisite watercolour was first in the collection of one of the leading collectors of Cubism in the early 20th Century, the French industrialist, Roger Dutilleul. Initially, Dutilleul was a particular admirer of Cézanne but, upon starting to collect art in the opening years of the new century, he soon found that he was unable to afford works by the Post-Impressionist master. Instead, Dutilleul turned to the avant-garde, finding, particularly in the work of Braque and Picasso, a close likeness to Cézanne. Starting with a Fauvist Braque, Dutilleul soon became one of the foremost collectors of Cubism in Paris, forging a close friendship with the leading cubist dealer of the time, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. Indeed, it is highly likely that Dutilleul acquired the present Pomme from Kahnweiler. By the outbreak of the First World War, Dutilleul had acquired an astonishing collection of some of the greatest cubist works by Braque and Picasso, as well as work by Léger, Derain and Vlaminck. During the war, Dutilleul met Modigliani and would soon become the leading patron of the artist.