.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
During the 1960s, Picasso’s fame and public recognition reached an all-time high. Always a private person, he became increasingly reclusive during this decade, as it was difficult for him to move about in public without being mobbed by curious onlookers. One of the reasons he chose in 1961 to move to Notre-Dame-de-Vie, a villa and surrounding property in Mougins, overlooking Cannes, was that it was set back from the road behind a wall, affording him the seclusion that he required to work undisturbed for long hours during the day and well into the night. The studio was becoming his world, a haven from the outside, but also a staging area in which he could focus on the many ideas that preoccupied him in his old age, grist for his boundless imagination and prodigious powers of invention.
Painted in the fall of 1964, Le Peintre III is a unique example from a series of paintings created that same year, in which Picasso obsessively explored the theme of the painter in his studio. Some of these show a bearded artist and some showed him with his model. Others, as is the case here, represent a wide-eyed young artist at his easel, clad in Picasso’s favorite work attire—a horizontally striped fisherman’s vest—indicating that he intended to represent himself.
Earlier in 1964, Guy Spitzer published an edition of 300 offset lithographs after Picasso’s painting Le Peintre (Zervos, vol. 23, no. 198). All were signed by the artist, who received 30 impressions as a royalty. Between October 10 and October 24, Picasso painted 28 of the offset lithographs in gouache and India ink (Zervos, vol. 24, nos. 215-243). These all take the reproduced image of Le Peintre as their starting point, and each is a unique variation executed over the printed image, featuring a range of different hairstyles and physical appearances. All point inherently to the practice of self-portraiture.
In this series, Picasso repeatedly captures his own features through an array of vigorous brushstrokes which—like the rejuvenated image he has projected here with long-gone dark hair—convey a sense of youth that belied his years. There is a great energy to the brushwork, revealing that the artist was in part fighting against his own inevitable aging and impending feelings of mortality. Indeed, as in so many of the whimsical and fantastic scenes that Picasso painted during the latter decades of his life, there is some level of wish fulfilment at play, a form of self-projection, an attempt to relive old days and regain youth through youthful movements.
The vigor and expressionistic quality of the brushwork in Le Peintre III, as well as the deliberate exploitation of the variety of textures with which he has rendered this image, reveal Picasso as a tireless innovator. The deliberate rawness of Le Peintre III shows the artist's own personal reaction to the advances that were taking place on both sides of the Atlantic, be it with the Abstract Expressionists in America or with Art Informel in Europe. Picasso was creating an artform filled with a jolting energy that would more truly convey life itself.
“And now he says he is turning his back on everything,” Hélène Parmelin, who witnessed the inception of these pictures, recounted. “He says he is embarking upon an incredible adventure. He says that everything is changed; it is over and done with; painting is completely different from what one had thought... He declares himself ready to kill modern ‘art’–and hence art itself–in order to rediscover painting... ‘Let it unfold in the form of the natural and not in the form of art [Picasso proclaimed]... The grass as grass, the tree as tree, the nude as nude...’ And from this moment on he paints like a madman, perhaps never before with such frenzy” (Picasso: The Artist and His Model, New York, 1965, pp. 9-10).
The present work was acquired from Picasso by Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler in 1968 and entered Carl Djerassi’s collection in 1969. Djerassi was a prominent collector and renowned scientist who sparked a cultural revolution by developing the first oral contraceptive. After his illustrious career as a chemist, Djerassi committed his time to writing and authored many popular novels, poems, and plays. Among his notable works is a published essay on the philosophy of art collecting. Djerassi’s art collection featured significant works by Henry Moore, Paul Klee, and other preeminent modern artists. Over his lifetime, he donated and sold many pieces – including gifting another Picasso from the same series as the present work to the San Francisco Museum of Art. As a lifelong champion of the arts, Djerassi founded the Djerassi Resident Artists Program which has benefited hundreds of artists and garnered an international reputation as a distinguished artist residency.
Painted in the fall of 1964, Le Peintre III is a unique example from a series of paintings created that same year, in which Picasso obsessively explored the theme of the painter in his studio. Some of these show a bearded artist and some showed him with his model. Others, as is the case here, represent a wide-eyed young artist at his easel, clad in Picasso’s favorite work attire—a horizontally striped fisherman’s vest—indicating that he intended to represent himself.
Earlier in 1964, Guy Spitzer published an edition of 300 offset lithographs after Picasso’s painting Le Peintre (Zervos, vol. 23, no. 198). All were signed by the artist, who received 30 impressions as a royalty. Between October 10 and October 24, Picasso painted 28 of the offset lithographs in gouache and India ink (Zervos, vol. 24, nos. 215-243). These all take the reproduced image of Le Peintre as their starting point, and each is a unique variation executed over the printed image, featuring a range of different hairstyles and physical appearances. All point inherently to the practice of self-portraiture.
In this series, Picasso repeatedly captures his own features through an array of vigorous brushstrokes which—like the rejuvenated image he has projected here with long-gone dark hair—convey a sense of youth that belied his years. There is a great energy to the brushwork, revealing that the artist was in part fighting against his own inevitable aging and impending feelings of mortality. Indeed, as in so many of the whimsical and fantastic scenes that Picasso painted during the latter decades of his life, there is some level of wish fulfilment at play, a form of self-projection, an attempt to relive old days and regain youth through youthful movements.
The vigor and expressionistic quality of the brushwork in Le Peintre III, as well as the deliberate exploitation of the variety of textures with which he has rendered this image, reveal Picasso as a tireless innovator. The deliberate rawness of Le Peintre III shows the artist's own personal reaction to the advances that were taking place on both sides of the Atlantic, be it with the Abstract Expressionists in America or with Art Informel in Europe. Picasso was creating an artform filled with a jolting energy that would more truly convey life itself.
“And now he says he is turning his back on everything,” Hélène Parmelin, who witnessed the inception of these pictures, recounted. “He says he is embarking upon an incredible adventure. He says that everything is changed; it is over and done with; painting is completely different from what one had thought... He declares himself ready to kill modern ‘art’–and hence art itself–in order to rediscover painting... ‘Let it unfold in the form of the natural and not in the form of art [Picasso proclaimed]... The grass as grass, the tree as tree, the nude as nude...’ And from this moment on he paints like a madman, perhaps never before with such frenzy” (Picasso: The Artist and His Model, New York, 1965, pp. 9-10).
The present work was acquired from Picasso by Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler in 1968 and entered Carl Djerassi’s collection in 1969. Djerassi was a prominent collector and renowned scientist who sparked a cultural revolution by developing the first oral contraceptive. After his illustrious career as a chemist, Djerassi committed his time to writing and authored many popular novels, poems, and plays. Among his notable works is a published essay on the philosophy of art collecting. Djerassi’s art collection featured significant works by Henry Moore, Paul Klee, and other preeminent modern artists. Over his lifetime, he donated and sold many pieces – including gifting another Picasso from the same series as the present work to the San Francisco Museum of Art. As a lifelong champion of the arts, Djerassi founded the Djerassi Resident Artists Program which has benefited hundreds of artists and garnered an international reputation as a distinguished artist residency.