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拍品专文
The reclining nude was one of Pablo Picasso’s favorite themes, appearing throughout his oeuvre in myriad styles, forms, and contexts. In 1901, the year the artist first made his name in the Parisian art world, this subject was among the most frequent in his work. Rich with art historical precedents both from his native Spain, as well as his soon-to-be adopted home of France, the motif provided the perfect vehicle for his artistic debut in the capital.
Painted with the same vigorous brushwork as his concurrent works in oil, Nu couché features a dark haired woman reclining against a white cushion, her intense, unblinking gaze burning out of the picture plane to meet the viewer. At this time, Picasso had plunged himself into the bohemian world of Paris, spending time in the hedonistic enclave of Montmartre, home to many of the dance halls and cabarets, as well as to their performers, dancers, prostitutes, and carousing spectators. Picasso depicted many of these female figures in a variety of ways: dressed up amidst the wild revelry and dazzling color of the Chat Noir or the Folies-Bergère, walking the streets of the city bedecked in their finery, or seen in the sanctuary of a bedroom, often nude, as if waiting for their next customer. Indeed as Nu couché demonstrates, it was this darker side of bohemian Paris that particularly captivated Picasso, offering the artist a cast of characters with erotic potential, who existed, like him, on the fringes of conventional life in the city.
The identity of this raven-haired figure is unknown. Picasso depicted a host of anonymous demi-mondaines over the course of this year, while also engaging in a number of love affairs. When he arrived in Paris in May, he took up with Germaine Gargallo, the notorious artists’ model and femme fatale who had driven the artist’s friend, Carles Casagemas, to suicide earlier in the year. Casagemas had desperately wanted Germaine to leave her husband, and, driven mad with frustration and insanity, had tried to shoot her in a Paris café one night. Though he missed, he thought he had killed her, and, in a fit of horror and despair, turned the gun on himself and fired. He died a few hours later—an event that would have a deep and lasting effect on Picasso, inspiring his Blue period that began later that autumn. Germaine’s similarly dark-eyed stare and heart-shaped face can be seen in another work on paper of 1901, Jeune femme (Germaine) (Zervos, vol. 1, no. 95; sold Christie’s, New York, 14 May 2019, lot 157). Their love affair was, however, short lived. By the autumn, Germaine had moved on to Ramon Pichot, a fellow Spanish artist, and Picasso likewise had a new girlfriend, Blanche. All of these women, as well as those whom he encountered in and around the streets of his new home, served as inspiration for Picasso throughout this seminal year, as he avidly absorbed every aspect of life in the cosmopolitan city.
Painted with the same vigorous brushwork as his concurrent works in oil, Nu couché features a dark haired woman reclining against a white cushion, her intense, unblinking gaze burning out of the picture plane to meet the viewer. At this time, Picasso had plunged himself into the bohemian world of Paris, spending time in the hedonistic enclave of Montmartre, home to many of the dance halls and cabarets, as well as to their performers, dancers, prostitutes, and carousing spectators. Picasso depicted many of these female figures in a variety of ways: dressed up amidst the wild revelry and dazzling color of the Chat Noir or the Folies-Bergère, walking the streets of the city bedecked in their finery, or seen in the sanctuary of a bedroom, often nude, as if waiting for their next customer. Indeed as Nu couché demonstrates, it was this darker side of bohemian Paris that particularly captivated Picasso, offering the artist a cast of characters with erotic potential, who existed, like him, on the fringes of conventional life in the city.
The identity of this raven-haired figure is unknown. Picasso depicted a host of anonymous demi-mondaines over the course of this year, while also engaging in a number of love affairs. When he arrived in Paris in May, he took up with Germaine Gargallo, the notorious artists’ model and femme fatale who had driven the artist’s friend, Carles Casagemas, to suicide earlier in the year. Casagemas had desperately wanted Germaine to leave her husband, and, driven mad with frustration and insanity, had tried to shoot her in a Paris café one night. Though he missed, he thought he had killed her, and, in a fit of horror and despair, turned the gun on himself and fired. He died a few hours later—an event that would have a deep and lasting effect on Picasso, inspiring his Blue period that began later that autumn. Germaine’s similarly dark-eyed stare and heart-shaped face can be seen in another work on paper of 1901, Jeune femme (Germaine) (Zervos, vol. 1, no. 95; sold Christie’s, New York, 14 May 2019, lot 157). Their love affair was, however, short lived. By the autumn, Germaine had moved on to Ramon Pichot, a fellow Spanish artist, and Picasso likewise had a new girlfriend, Blanche. All of these women, as well as those whom he encountered in and around the streets of his new home, served as inspiration for Picasso throughout this seminal year, as he avidly absorbed every aspect of life in the cosmopolitan city.