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Lot Essay
The image of Picasso’s second wife and muse, Jacqueline Roque, flowered in every aspect of the artist’s work since their first encounter in 1953 at the Madoura Pottery workshop, her presence dominating his painting, drawing, prints, sculpture and ceramics throughout this prolific and joy-filled period of his career. As John Richardson has written, “It is [Jacqueline’s] image that permeates Picasso’s work from 1954 until her death, twice as long as any of her predecessors. It is her body that we are able to explore more exhaustively than any other body in the history of art… It is her vulnerability and tenderness that gives a new intensity to the combination of cruelty and tenderness that endows Picasso’s women with their pathos and their strength” (“L’époque Jacqueline,” Late Picasso, exh. cat., Tate Gallery, London, 1988, p. 47).
Rendered in profile with almond-shaped eyes, the model depicted in Buste de femme de profil is unmistakably Jacqueline. In this 1959 work, Picasso used bold lines and geometric shapes to render her iconic features, as seen in the sharp angle of her nose, the straight slope of her shoulders and the symmetrical arcs of her breasts. The effect of this hieratic abstraction is one of idolatry: Jacqueline appears immortalized, her likeness enshrined within the composition. The ornamental designs on her headdress and sleeves disrupt the stasis achieved by Picasso’s geometric lines and deliberate flattening of space by guiding the viewer’s eye around the image, and creating movement that breathes life into her figure.
Picasso’s unique treatment of this perennial subject is a testament to his boundless creativity and desire for innovation. Drawn in charcoal, this work is a rare example of the artist drawing directly onto linoleum, which traditionally creates the surface for linocut prints. Picasso first experimented with printmaking in 1939, but fully embraced the medium in the mid-1950s while in the South of France. Defying convention, Picasso depicted this original portrait on a surface traditionally used to create a series of reproductions, as if to symbolically convey both the limitless nature of his affection and the ubiquity of Jacqueline’s power.
Rendered in profile with almond-shaped eyes, the model depicted in Buste de femme de profil is unmistakably Jacqueline. In this 1959 work, Picasso used bold lines and geometric shapes to render her iconic features, as seen in the sharp angle of her nose, the straight slope of her shoulders and the symmetrical arcs of her breasts. The effect of this hieratic abstraction is one of idolatry: Jacqueline appears immortalized, her likeness enshrined within the composition. The ornamental designs on her headdress and sleeves disrupt the stasis achieved by Picasso’s geometric lines and deliberate flattening of space by guiding the viewer’s eye around the image, and creating movement that breathes life into her figure.
Picasso’s unique treatment of this perennial subject is a testament to his boundless creativity and desire for innovation. Drawn in charcoal, this work is a rare example of the artist drawing directly onto linoleum, which traditionally creates the surface for linocut prints. Picasso first experimented with printmaking in 1939, but fully embraced the medium in the mid-1950s while in the South of France. Defying convention, Picasso depicted this original portrait on a surface traditionally used to create a series of reproductions, as if to symbolically convey both the limitless nature of his affection and the ubiquity of Jacqueline’s power.