.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Maya Widmaier-Picasso has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
Claude Picasso has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
Picasso’s interest in the possibilities of collage began at an early age. He had first seen this technique utilised by his father Don José Ruiz y Blasco, an artist and teacher, who used the method to configure his paintings. As described by Roland Penrose, 'In his passion for painting pigeons, Don José would often attempt ambitious compositions. In order to arrive at the happiest solution to their arrangement, he would first paint individual birds on paper, then, having cut them out, he shifted them round until the composition took shape. In fact, from his childhood, Pablo became acquainted with the possibilities of using material in unconventional ways, borrowing from any source that came to hand, and making the newly discovered substance obey his wishes' (R. Penrose, Picasso, His Life and Work, London, 1981, p. 13). Homme à l’oiseau et joueur de diaule, from 1958, exemplifies Picasso’s lifelong obsession with this technique, which continued well after his famed cubist days into a wide range of media, including sculpture, photography and ceramic.
In 1953, Picasso met André Villiers, a young photographer, in Vallauris. The pair would go on to collaborate with experiments in light and cut-outs between 1954 and 1961, notably producing a collaborative work with poetic text by Jacques Prévert entitled Diurnes, Decoupages, et Photographies, published by Hans Berggruen in 1962. One can see the influence of this important relationship in the present unique work, an experiment whereby Picasso uses one of Villiers' photographs as the base medium for his composition, manipulating it as if a readymade with collage, ink and cut-out into an entirely new image.
A discussion on such formal investigations with scissors would be incomplete without mention of Picasso’s significant contemporary, friend and artistic rival, Henri Matisse. Both Picasso and Matisse had made significant bodies of work employing collage and the cut-out, each extending to new heights within their work at different times as a result. Matisse famously began his cut-outs in the early 1940s, which were hailed a revelation in their freshness and vivacity. In these works, negative space of what was cut-out played as much a part as positive space where colour was applied. Le cirque, which would feature within the famous series of cut-outs Jazz (later issued as part of a printed edition by Teriade), boldly illustrates the artist’s mastery of colour and form through this medium. Similar compositional devices, along with a sense of musical revelry and joie de vivre, are dominant in the present work too; the flute player and dove each being recurrent motifs in Picasso’s œuvre. Although Picasso’s cut-out collage remains monochrome, the formal principles bear the same freshness and vibrancy of the direct cutting technique and pay homage to the dynamic relationship Picasso and Matisse shared of mutual artistic respect.
Claude Picasso has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
Picasso’s interest in the possibilities of collage began at an early age. He had first seen this technique utilised by his father Don José Ruiz y Blasco, an artist and teacher, who used the method to configure his paintings. As described by Roland Penrose, 'In his passion for painting pigeons, Don José would often attempt ambitious compositions. In order to arrive at the happiest solution to their arrangement, he would first paint individual birds on paper, then, having cut them out, he shifted them round until the composition took shape. In fact, from his childhood, Pablo became acquainted with the possibilities of using material in unconventional ways, borrowing from any source that came to hand, and making the newly discovered substance obey his wishes' (R. Penrose, Picasso, His Life and Work, London, 1981, p. 13). Homme à l’oiseau et joueur de diaule, from 1958, exemplifies Picasso’s lifelong obsession with this technique, which continued well after his famed cubist days into a wide range of media, including sculpture, photography and ceramic.
In 1953, Picasso met André Villiers, a young photographer, in Vallauris. The pair would go on to collaborate with experiments in light and cut-outs between 1954 and 1961, notably producing a collaborative work with poetic text by Jacques Prévert entitled Diurnes, Decoupages, et Photographies, published by Hans Berggruen in 1962. One can see the influence of this important relationship in the present unique work, an experiment whereby Picasso uses one of Villiers' photographs as the base medium for his composition, manipulating it as if a readymade with collage, ink and cut-out into an entirely new image.
A discussion on such formal investigations with scissors would be incomplete without mention of Picasso’s significant contemporary, friend and artistic rival, Henri Matisse. Both Picasso and Matisse had made significant bodies of work employing collage and the cut-out, each extending to new heights within their work at different times as a result. Matisse famously began his cut-outs in the early 1940s, which were hailed a revelation in their freshness and vivacity. In these works, negative space of what was cut-out played as much a part as positive space where colour was applied. Le cirque, which would feature within the famous series of cut-outs Jazz (later issued as part of a printed edition by Teriade), boldly illustrates the artist’s mastery of colour and form through this medium. Similar compositional devices, along with a sense of musical revelry and joie de vivre, are dominant in the present work too; the flute player and dove each being recurrent motifs in Picasso’s œuvre. Although Picasso’s cut-out collage remains monochrome, the formal principles bear the same freshness and vibrancy of the direct cutting technique and pay homage to the dynamic relationship Picasso and Matisse shared of mutual artistic respect.