.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Despite turning 90 in 1971, there was no diminution of effort and energy in the work of Pablo Picasso. Dating from the following year, Deux nus couchés reveals the frenetic force of life that drove Picasso, the creativity that continued to surge through him. In this drawing, two women are shown naked and reclining. Meanwhile, the background of the sheet is finely worked with a range of hatchings, looping curls and swirls and washes; the bodies of the women, left deliberately in reserve, are thrown into relief, appearing all the bolder on the sheet.
Picasso dated Deux nus couchés on 15 August 1972, but appears to have returned to the picture the following day, dating it again in red. Looking at the picture, one wonders what else he added during this second session: was it the red that marks some of the flesh, the toe nails and the background, or did he add other colour areas? Certainly, Picasso has employed colour to emphasise the composition, using it to heighten certain areas, lending them more presence.
Deux nus couchés was one of the last of the drawings included in an exhibition held at the Galerie Louise Leiris at the end of 1972 and beginning of 1973. That show featured only pictures executed between 21 November 1971 and 18 August 1972, two days after Deux nus couchés was created. Roland Penrose visited the exhibition and was struck by the vigour and draughtsmanship on display, writing to the artist afterwards to say: 'I spoke with Heini and Zette and we all agree that these are probably the most beautiful drawings you have ever made' (Penrose, quoted in E. Cowling, Visiting Picasso: The Notebooks and Letters of Roland Penrose, London, 2006, p. 340). Penrose himself purchased one of the most striking works on display, a self-portrait head that has since been seen, with its skull-like quality, as a presentiment of mortality on the part of the artist. By contrast, Deux nus couchés shows the incredible sense of pulsing life that still charged his imagination. In Paris Match, the exhibition received a favourable review which reflected the quality of pictures such as Deux nus couchés:
'Nothing of the slippery exoticism that would reveal any sign of senility. The current exhibition turns spotlights on a Goyesque world and presents the phantasms of his creator: colossal girls of purchasable erotic allure, depraved gnomes, aristocrats who display the arrogant noble posturing of old warriors on conquered territory in houses of pleasure. At ninety-one, Picasso continues to reinvent Picasso' ('Picasso version 1972', in Paris Match, 27 Jan 1973, reproduced in W. Spies, ed., Picasso: Painting against Time, exh. cat., Vienna & Dusseldorf, 2006, p. 296).
Picasso dated Deux nus couchés on 15 August 1972, but appears to have returned to the picture the following day, dating it again in red. Looking at the picture, one wonders what else he added during this second session: was it the red that marks some of the flesh, the toe nails and the background, or did he add other colour areas? Certainly, Picasso has employed colour to emphasise the composition, using it to heighten certain areas, lending them more presence.
Deux nus couchés was one of the last of the drawings included in an exhibition held at the Galerie Louise Leiris at the end of 1972 and beginning of 1973. That show featured only pictures executed between 21 November 1971 and 18 August 1972, two days after Deux nus couchés was created. Roland Penrose visited the exhibition and was struck by the vigour and draughtsmanship on display, writing to the artist afterwards to say: 'I spoke with Heini and Zette and we all agree that these are probably the most beautiful drawings you have ever made' (Penrose, quoted in E. Cowling, Visiting Picasso: The Notebooks and Letters of Roland Penrose, London, 2006, p. 340). Penrose himself purchased one of the most striking works on display, a self-portrait head that has since been seen, with its skull-like quality, as a presentiment of mortality on the part of the artist. By contrast, Deux nus couchés shows the incredible sense of pulsing life that still charged his imagination. In Paris Match, the exhibition received a favourable review which reflected the quality of pictures such as Deux nus couchés:
'Nothing of the slippery exoticism that would reveal any sign of senility. The current exhibition turns spotlights on a Goyesque world and presents the phantasms of his creator: colossal girls of purchasable erotic allure, depraved gnomes, aristocrats who display the arrogant noble posturing of old warriors on conquered territory in houses of pleasure. At ninety-one, Picasso continues to reinvent Picasso' ('Picasso version 1972', in Paris Match, 27 Jan 1973, reproduced in W. Spies, ed., Picasso: Painting against Time, exh. cat., Vienna & Dusseldorf, 2006, p. 296).