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Lot Essay
‘The true heirs are us. The painters, those who carry on painting. We are the heirs of Rembrandt, Velázquez, Cézanne, Matisse. A painter always has a father and a mother, he doesn’t spring from nothing’ – Pablo Picasso (Picasso, in Marius de Zayas, “Picasso Speaks. A Statement by the Artist,” The Arts, May 19, 1923, quoted in Picasso’s Masterpieces: The Musée Picasso Paris Collection, Paris, 2014, p. 532).
‘…the last seven years of Picasso’s life constituted a Great Late Phase, one in which he felt free to do whatever he wanted, in whatever way he wanted, regardless of correctness, political, social, or artistic.’ – John Richardson (Richardson, ‘Great Late Picasso,’ in Picasso: Mosqueteros , exh. cat., New York, 2009, p. 15). Executed towards the final year of Pablo Picasso’s life, Nu debout et homme tenant un verre bursts with a sense of desire, vitality and mischief. Through intricately interlaced lines, the composition narrates a charged interaction between the painter and his model, a theme which occupied Picasso almost continuously throughout the final decade of his life. This work not only offers a glimpse into the heady, passionate relationship between Picasso and his muse, but also the extreme zeal with which he approached the act of painting at that time.
Displaying a distinct confidence and self-assuredness as she gazes seductively toward her partner, the female character in the work appears to be the embodiment of l’éternel féminin . Standing nonchalantly before her admirer, she raises her arms above her head in a manner that frames her face and reveals her body, her posture echoing the sensuous odalisques of Ingres and Matisse. The male figure, meanwhile, remains entirely captivated by the woman, his eyes cast wide as he stares at the sensual body before him. A surrogate for the artist himself, this virile figure was an extension of the swashbuckling mosquetero character that had first emerged in Picasso’s work during the final months of 1966. With their dandyish poses, elaborate costumes and debonair appearances, Picasso’s musketeers appear as mock-heroic cavaliers, often brandishing their swords towards their female companions in a gesture that alluded to their sexual prowess. In this work, the sword replaced by a glass, evokes classical paintings of Rembrandt.
Picasso had returned to the subject of the painter and his model following of a decade-long exploration into the themes and iconography of the great masters of art history. During the 1950s and early 1960s, he conducted in-depth studies of a selection of masterpieces by artists including Delacroix (in his Femme d’Alger series , 1954-1955), Velazquez (Las Meninas , 1957), Manet (Le déjeuner sur l’herbe , 1960-1962), and lastly Poussin (L’enlevement des sabines , 1962-63), absorbing the compositional techniques of his predecessors and then translating them through a decidedly non-traditional language into his own, unique variation of the subject. By directly engaging with the work of these revered artistic figures of the past, Picasso was not only measuring himself against their achievements, comparing the strength of their imagination against his own, he was also assessing his position within this esteemed lineage of great European painters. He told Alexander Liberman, the editor of Vogue magazine, that ‘paintings are but research and experiment. I never do a painting as a work of art. All of them are researches. I search incessantly and there is a logical sequence in all this research. That is why I number them. It’s an experiment in time’ (Picasso, quoted in D. Ashton, ed., Picasso on Art, New York, 1972, p. 72).
It is this passion for painting, for life, for creation itself, which makes Picasso’s art from the twilight years of his career seem so vital and compelling to this day. Driven by a heady mixture of desire and memory, they show an artist painting without restraint, as he tried to express all that remained within his creative imagination, before it was too late: ‘I have less and less time to paint,’ he proclaimed in a moment of poignant honesty, ‘and I have more and more to say…’ (Picasso, quoted in M-L. Bernadac, ‘Picasso 1953-1972: Painting as Model,’ in Late Picasso: Paintings , sculpture, drawings, prints 1953-1972, exh. cat., London, 1988, p. 85).
‘…the last seven years of Picasso’s life constituted a Great Late Phase, one in which he felt free to do whatever he wanted, in whatever way he wanted, regardless of correctness, political, social, or artistic.’ – John Richardson (Richardson, ‘Great Late Picasso,’ in Picasso: Mosqueteros , exh. cat., New York, 2009, p. 15). Executed towards the final year of Pablo Picasso’s life, Nu debout et homme tenant un verre bursts with a sense of desire, vitality and mischief. Through intricately interlaced lines, the composition narrates a charged interaction between the painter and his model, a theme which occupied Picasso almost continuously throughout the final decade of his life. This work not only offers a glimpse into the heady, passionate relationship between Picasso and his muse, but also the extreme zeal with which he approached the act of painting at that time.
Displaying a distinct confidence and self-assuredness as she gazes seductively toward her partner, the female character in the work appears to be the embodiment of l’éternel féminin . Standing nonchalantly before her admirer, she raises her arms above her head in a manner that frames her face and reveals her body, her posture echoing the sensuous odalisques of Ingres and Matisse. The male figure, meanwhile, remains entirely captivated by the woman, his eyes cast wide as he stares at the sensual body before him. A surrogate for the artist himself, this virile figure was an extension of the swashbuckling mosquetero character that had first emerged in Picasso’s work during the final months of 1966. With their dandyish poses, elaborate costumes and debonair appearances, Picasso’s musketeers appear as mock-heroic cavaliers, often brandishing their swords towards their female companions in a gesture that alluded to their sexual prowess. In this work, the sword replaced by a glass, evokes classical paintings of Rembrandt.
Picasso had returned to the subject of the painter and his model following of a decade-long exploration into the themes and iconography of the great masters of art history. During the 1950s and early 1960s, he conducted in-depth studies of a selection of masterpieces by artists including Delacroix (in his Femme d’Alger series , 1954-1955), Velazquez (Las Meninas , 1957), Manet (Le déjeuner sur l’herbe , 1960-1962), and lastly Poussin (L’enlevement des sabines , 1962-63), absorbing the compositional techniques of his predecessors and then translating them through a decidedly non-traditional language into his own, unique variation of the subject. By directly engaging with the work of these revered artistic figures of the past, Picasso was not only measuring himself against their achievements, comparing the strength of their imagination against his own, he was also assessing his position within this esteemed lineage of great European painters. He told Alexander Liberman, the editor of Vogue magazine, that ‘paintings are but research and experiment. I never do a painting as a work of art. All of them are researches. I search incessantly and there is a logical sequence in all this research. That is why I number them. It’s an experiment in time’ (Picasso, quoted in D. Ashton, ed., Picasso on Art, New York, 1972, p. 72).
It is this passion for painting, for life, for creation itself, which makes Picasso’s art from the twilight years of his career seem so vital and compelling to this day. Driven by a heady mixture of desire and memory, they show an artist painting without restraint, as he tried to express all that remained within his creative imagination, before it was too late: ‘I have less and less time to paint,’ he proclaimed in a moment of poignant honesty, ‘and I have more and more to say…’ (Picasso, quoted in M-L. Bernadac, ‘Picasso 1953-1972: Painting as Model,’ in Late Picasso: Paintings , sculpture, drawings, prints 1953-1972, exh. cat., London, 1988, p. 85).