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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.
In the aftermath of World War II, the Peace Movement had an enormous impact on intellectual life in Europe. As Tony Judt explains, “from 1946 to the death of Stalin no other topic so dominated public discussion” (quoted in G. R. Utley, Pablo Picasso: The Communist Years, New Haven, 2000 p. 106). It became an arena where intellectuals were able to wield their authority and prestige. The French delegation of the Peace Movement included Picasso, Paul Eluard, Irène Joliot-Curie and Fernand Léger.
According to his dealer, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Picasso had been uninterested in politics until the Spanish Civil War, an event which was crucial in the formation of his current outlook: “He had never thought about politics at all, but the Franco uprising was an event that wrenched him out of this quietude and made him a defender of peace and liberty” (quoted in My Galleries and Painters, London 1971, p.108). In 1937, Picasso painted his famous response to the German bombing of the Basque village of Guernica, and from there he became a symbol of antifascism, specifically of the struggle against fascism of artists and intellectuals. At the end of the Second World War, he joined the Communist Party and attended several World Peace Congresses between 1948 and 1951.
The present work is the original gouache which was used to create a scarf in honor of the Festival Mondial de la Jeunesse et des Etudiants pour la Paix in Berlin in August 1951. The central peace dove had been the cornerstone symbol of Picasso’s work for the Communist movement. That dove is here surrounded by four profiles representing European, African, Asiatic and American Indian cultures. The same design was utilized again in posters for the Prague spring festival in 1954 (fig. 1) and for Bertolt Brecht’s Berliner Ensemble. The scarf and its preparatory drawing adorned a wall of the artist’s villa in Vallauris, demonstrating its significance to him (fig. 2).
Claude Picasso has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
In the aftermath of World War II, the Peace Movement had an enormous impact on intellectual life in Europe. As Tony Judt explains, “from 1946 to the death of Stalin no other topic so dominated public discussion” (quoted in G. R. Utley, Pablo Picasso: The Communist Years, New Haven, 2000 p. 106). It became an arena where intellectuals were able to wield their authority and prestige. The French delegation of the Peace Movement included Picasso, Paul Eluard, Irène Joliot-Curie and Fernand Léger.
According to his dealer, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Picasso had been uninterested in politics until the Spanish Civil War, an event which was crucial in the formation of his current outlook: “He had never thought about politics at all, but the Franco uprising was an event that wrenched him out of this quietude and made him a defender of peace and liberty” (quoted in My Galleries and Painters, London 1971, p.108). In 1937, Picasso painted his famous response to the German bombing of the Basque village of Guernica, and from there he became a symbol of antifascism, specifically of the struggle against fascism of artists and intellectuals. At the end of the Second World War, he joined the Communist Party and attended several World Peace Congresses between 1948 and 1951.
The present work is the original gouache which was used to create a scarf in honor of the Festival Mondial de la Jeunesse et des Etudiants pour la Paix in Berlin in August 1951. The central peace dove had been the cornerstone symbol of Picasso’s work for the Communist movement. That dove is here surrounded by four profiles representing European, African, Asiatic and American Indian cultures. The same design was utilized again in posters for the Prague spring festival in 1954 (fig. 1) and for Bertolt Brecht’s Berliner Ensemble. The scarf and its preparatory drawing adorned a wall of the artist’s villa in Vallauris, demonstrating its significance to him (fig. 2).