Bras vertical

Conceived in 1959, Bras vertical is a bold visual statement of Pablo Picasso’s artistic identity and virtuosity. Taking his own right hand and arm as his subject, this work shows the artist meditating on the essential tool of his entire artistic creation. Formerly in the collection of prominent Chicago philanthropists, James W. and Marilynn Alsdorf, this cast is one of an edition of six. Others today reside in museum collections including The University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tuscon, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. and the Moderna Museet, Stockholm.
Picasso was as innovative in the medium of sculpture as in painting. Throughout his career, he turned to working in three-dimensions in distinct periods of fervent experimentation. From the famed cubist Tête de Fernande of 1909 and his assemblage Guitares that he began in 1912, to his “drawings in space” of the late 1920s, Picasso’s sculpture followed the bold diversity of his painting and drawing and is defined by the same spirit of invention. He remained unhindered by the restraints or traditions of the medium—overturning conventional approaches to materials and methods of creating sculpture.
Following the end of the Second World War, Picasso relocated to the south of France on a more permanent basis. In Vallauris, he returned to assemblage sculpture, making large and playful works that reflect the contentment and peace he was enjoying in his life at this time. From the early 1950s, his practice changed again, moving away from these three-dimensional, robust works to more planar and abstracted depictions including bathers, as well as portraits, created frequently in wood and latterly, sheet metal. Living in La Californie with his new lover, Jacqueline Roque, it was during this period that Picasso executed the present work.
In contrast to his contemporaneous sculpture, the present work is resolutely rounded and three-dimensional. Picasso vigorously modeled as well as cut and incised the plaster to impart a powerful sense of corporeality and physicality to this ascendant arm and outstretched hand. In particular, the lines that trace across the palm and gather around the joints of his fingers are rendered with a sense of highly nuanced detail, tracing the unique identity of Picasso’s hand while at the same time memorializing his presence in creating this work.
Picasso had long been interested by the power of his hands and had integrated them into his art in various forms at different times in his career. Exquisitely drawn studies of hands, including his own, appear in his Neo-Classical work of the late 1910s and early 1920s, occasionally appearing on the same sheet or canvas as small cubist still-life compositions—a virtuoso display of his ability at this time to alternate between these two dominant styles. In 1935, Man Ray photographed the artist. He appears frontally, with his right arm prominently raised and leaning against his head. Later, in 1954, Arnold Newman pictured the artist in a similar pose—his large hand casting part of his face and his famed mirada fuerte into dramatic shadow. An outstretched, severed arm, its fist still tightly clutching a blade, appears in the foreground of Picasso’s Guernica, an image of human violence and suffering, as well as serving as the unmistakable gesture of the Communist salute. In 1937, Picasso cast his left and right hands in plaster. Later, in 1949, these works were photographed by Brassaï for a publication, Les Sculptures de Picasso.
Created towards the end of his career in sculpture, Bras vertical therefore stands as a definitive, defiant demonstration of Picasso’s identity as a sculptor and artist, for whom his own right hand had been the origin and facilitator of his prodigious creation in every medium.