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拍品专文
Maya Widmaier-Picasso has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
Claude Ruiz Picasso has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
1932 has long been recognized as one of the high points of Picasso's career. Inspired by his love for his mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter and excited by his return to making sculpture, Picasso reached an extraordinary pitch of creativity and produced one masterpiece after another, including such notable paintings as Le rêve and Nu au fauteuil noir. Robert Rosenblum called 1932 'that great vintage year [...] a year of rapturous masterpieces that reached an unfamiliar summit in both his painting and his sculpture' (R. Rosenblum, Picasso and Portraiture, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1996, pp. 360-361).
The story of Picasso's first encounter with Marie-Thérèse is well documented: 'Outside the Galeries Lafayette, one freezing afternoon, he was captivated by the sight of a very young, very voluptuous blond with intensely piercing blue eyes--the quintessential femme enfant. Picasso grabbed her arm, but his opening gambit almost misfired: 'Mademoiselle, you have an interesting face. I would like to do a portrait of you. I am Picasso.' She had never heard of him; and he was obliged to take her to a nearby bookstore and show her publications in which his photograph appeared. In the course of this maneuver he managed to charm the girl into meeting him two days later at the Métro Saint-Lazare, well away from his usual haunts. 'We will do great things together', he said and took her to a movie. Despite thirty years difference in age, she found him attractive; she liked the way he dressed' (J. Richardson, exh. cat., Through the Eye of Picasso 1928-1934, New York, 1985).
In 1930 Picasso bought a seventeenth-century chateau at Boisgeloup in Normandy, and it was there that his relationship with Marie-Thérèse reached a climax. For the next five years, she became the prime subject of his paintings and sculptures. Indeed, Pierre Daix has called Picasso's œuvre from this period a 'hymn to Marie-Thérèse, while William Rubin has written: 'None of Picasso's earlier relationships had provoked such sustained lyric power, such a sense of psychological awareness and erotic completeness [...] Picasso proceeds from his intense feeling for the girl [...] he paints the body contemplated, loved and self-contemplating. The vision of another's body becomes an intensely arousing and mysterious process' (W. Rubin, Picasso in the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1971, p. 138).
At Boisgeloup Picasso also threw himself into the production of sculpture, a medium he had not investigated for nearly twenty years. In 1931 he began a series of sculptures of Marie-Thérèse, including reliefs and four monumental heads. As Alan Bowness has declared, 'From the beginning, Picasso had seen Marie-Thérèse as sculpture' (A. Bowness, 'Picasso's Sculpture', in Picasso in Retrospect, New York, 1973, p. 141). All these sculptures emphasise her classic profile, the beautiful straight line formed by her nose and forehead; clearly this feature especially fascinated Picasso. Sir Roland Penrose has further suggested that this emphasis in the sculptures on Marie-Thérèse's profile was inspired by a mask from the Baga tribe which Picasso kept in the foyer of the chateau: 'This piece, with an exaggerated arched nose and a head almost detached from the neck, found its echo in the monumental plaster heads in the stables across the courtyard' (R. Penrose, Picasso: His Life and Work, London, 1981, p. 267).
Marie-Thérèse de profil echoes his investigation of sculpture at this time, a beautiful and monumental watercolour for its size, the character of the palette is reminiscent of the plaster he would use to set her into immortality, the depth of the background suggesting broad space, falling beyond. This work was completed shortly after his first major retrospective held at Galerie Georges Petit in Paris, in June 1932 which was the first exhibition that the artist himself curated and the first time his portraits of Marie-Thérèse were exhibited in public, thus becoming a public statement of their love affair. A charming and gentle portrait, it nevertheless carries the intimacy of this great love affair. Dedicated to Louis Fort, Picasso’s friend who was an engraver and worked with the artist to help him explore printmaking techniques early in his career, it bears a closeness and importance in its provenance also, a cherished symbol of love and friendship.
Claude Ruiz Picasso has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
1932 has long been recognized as one of the high points of Picasso's career. Inspired by his love for his mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter and excited by his return to making sculpture, Picasso reached an extraordinary pitch of creativity and produced one masterpiece after another, including such notable paintings as Le rêve and Nu au fauteuil noir. Robert Rosenblum called 1932 'that great vintage year [...] a year of rapturous masterpieces that reached an unfamiliar summit in both his painting and his sculpture' (R. Rosenblum, Picasso and Portraiture, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1996, pp. 360-361).
The story of Picasso's first encounter with Marie-Thérèse is well documented: 'Outside the Galeries Lafayette, one freezing afternoon, he was captivated by the sight of a very young, very voluptuous blond with intensely piercing blue eyes--the quintessential femme enfant. Picasso grabbed her arm, but his opening gambit almost misfired: 'Mademoiselle, you have an interesting face. I would like to do a portrait of you. I am Picasso.' She had never heard of him; and he was obliged to take her to a nearby bookstore and show her publications in which his photograph appeared. In the course of this maneuver he managed to charm the girl into meeting him two days later at the Métro Saint-Lazare, well away from his usual haunts. 'We will do great things together', he said and took her to a movie. Despite thirty years difference in age, she found him attractive; she liked the way he dressed' (J. Richardson, exh. cat., Through the Eye of Picasso 1928-1934, New York, 1985).
In 1930 Picasso bought a seventeenth-century chateau at Boisgeloup in Normandy, and it was there that his relationship with Marie-Thérèse reached a climax. For the next five years, she became the prime subject of his paintings and sculptures. Indeed, Pierre Daix has called Picasso's œuvre from this period a 'hymn to Marie-Thérèse, while William Rubin has written: 'None of Picasso's earlier relationships had provoked such sustained lyric power, such a sense of psychological awareness and erotic completeness [...] Picasso proceeds from his intense feeling for the girl [...] he paints the body contemplated, loved and self-contemplating. The vision of another's body becomes an intensely arousing and mysterious process' (W. Rubin, Picasso in the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1971, p. 138).
At Boisgeloup Picasso also threw himself into the production of sculpture, a medium he had not investigated for nearly twenty years. In 1931 he began a series of sculptures of Marie-Thérèse, including reliefs and four monumental heads. As Alan Bowness has declared, 'From the beginning, Picasso had seen Marie-Thérèse as sculpture' (A. Bowness, 'Picasso's Sculpture', in Picasso in Retrospect, New York, 1973, p. 141). All these sculptures emphasise her classic profile, the beautiful straight line formed by her nose and forehead; clearly this feature especially fascinated Picasso. Sir Roland Penrose has further suggested that this emphasis in the sculptures on Marie-Thérèse's profile was inspired by a mask from the Baga tribe which Picasso kept in the foyer of the chateau: 'This piece, with an exaggerated arched nose and a head almost detached from the neck, found its echo in the monumental plaster heads in the stables across the courtyard' (R. Penrose, Picasso: His Life and Work, London, 1981, p. 267).
Marie-Thérèse de profil echoes his investigation of sculpture at this time, a beautiful and monumental watercolour for its size, the character of the palette is reminiscent of the plaster he would use to set her into immortality, the depth of the background suggesting broad space, falling beyond. This work was completed shortly after his first major retrospective held at Galerie Georges Petit in Paris, in June 1932 which was the first exhibition that the artist himself curated and the first time his portraits of Marie-Thérèse were exhibited in public, thus becoming a public statement of their love affair. A charming and gentle portrait, it nevertheless carries the intimacy of this great love affair. Dedicated to Louis Fort, Picasso’s friend who was an engraver and worked with the artist to help him explore printmaking techniques early in his career, it bears a closeness and importance in its provenance also, a cherished symbol of love and friendship.