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拍品专文
Boldly articulating the youthful beauty of the painter Françoise Gilot, Picasso’s partner and muse, Portrait de Françoise relates to a group of works in playful primary colors that Picasso executed in the first half of 1946. Working across paintings, drawings, pastels and lithographs, Picasso employs bright, confident line and colour blocking to evoke a strikingly statuesque image of his young lover during the early stages of their relationship.
Having met the Gilot in 1943 as a young and aspiring artist, Picasso would become enamored with her intelligence and youthful beauty, which in May 1946 led him to implore her to live with him. Their cohabitation began that month in Paris, bringing their relationship to a new phase of domestic intensity. Remarking of this time in her autobiography, Life with Picasso, Gilot recalled: “During the first month after I went to live with Pablo, I never left the house. Most of that time I spent in the studio watching him draw and paint. 'I almost never work from a model, but since you’re here, maybe I ought to try,’… He picked up a large sketching-age and made three drawings of my head. When he had finished, he studied the results, then frowned. 'No good,' he said. 'It just doesn’t work.' He tore up the drawings. The next day he said, 'You’d be better posing for me nude.' When I had taken off my clothes, he had me stand back to the entrance, very erect, with my arms at my side... Pablo stood off, three or four years from me, looking tense and remote. His eyes didn’t leave me for a second. It seemed a very long time. Finally he said, ‘I see what I need to do. You can dress now. You won’t have to pose again’" (F. Gilot, Life with Picasso, New York, 1964, p. 109-110).
From that moment, Picasso captured his vision of Gilot’s essence in his mind’s eye and would continue to evoke her from memory. He would evolve his studies of Gilot toward the famous renderings of her as the Femme fleur merging her features with the shapes and forms of vegetation, which would come to typify his interpretation of her essence. Gilot describes the evolution of this motif as Picasso gradually likened her hands to growing leaves, remarking, "you see now, a woman that holds the whole world—heaven and earth—in her hand" (ibid., p. 113).
Upon Picasso’s insistence, the pair traveled to the South of France during the summer of 1946, whereupon Portrait de Françoise would be executed. Their love for one another was conceived in the context of their shared love of art, and a passionate intensity ensued in their relationship as each attempted to assert themselves, challenged by the contrasting essence of each others’ personality; Picasso often dominant and provocative, Gilot frequently perceived by him as resolutely cerebral and rational, as described in her memoir. Her aspect in this sense is captured in Portrait de Françoise, her youthful aspect rendered directly, strongly and simply. Their relationship would continue until 1953 when Gilot would famously become the first and only woman to muster the strength to leave Picasso, having borne two beloved children between them, Claude and Paloma, the former being conceived around the time of the present work.
Perfectly rendering her likeness the present work, Picasso’s portrait is remarkable in its dynamic economy of means. Gilot’s open face is depicted with thick strokes of bright, primary color, enshrined within a full halo of abundant hair. The character of the line recalls Henri Matisse’s bold, linear, portraits of the same period, activated by hue, and employing the underlying sheet of paper into a remarkably active role. Spatially enlivened by the carving of his hand in color, the warm cream tones of the paper stand in to reflect her dewy complexion. The succinct and confident line channels Picasso’s vision of her as youthful yet stoic; statuesque and composed, whilst infusing her aspect with warmth, echoing the bright and sunny climes of the South of France. The directness of her forward-facing pose echoes the idols of an ancient civilization, Picasso’s lust for arcadian themes and the characteristic enshrinement of his feminine subjects underlying her stature. Here she appears eternal, her bright eyes gleaming with a goddess-like power.
Having met the Gilot in 1943 as a young and aspiring artist, Picasso would become enamored with her intelligence and youthful beauty, which in May 1946 led him to implore her to live with him. Their cohabitation began that month in Paris, bringing their relationship to a new phase of domestic intensity. Remarking of this time in her autobiography, Life with Picasso, Gilot recalled: “During the first month after I went to live with Pablo, I never left the house. Most of that time I spent in the studio watching him draw and paint. 'I almost never work from a model, but since you’re here, maybe I ought to try,’… He picked up a large sketching-age and made three drawings of my head. When he had finished, he studied the results, then frowned. 'No good,' he said. 'It just doesn’t work.' He tore up the drawings. The next day he said, 'You’d be better posing for me nude.' When I had taken off my clothes, he had me stand back to the entrance, very erect, with my arms at my side... Pablo stood off, three or four years from me, looking tense and remote. His eyes didn’t leave me for a second. It seemed a very long time. Finally he said, ‘I see what I need to do. You can dress now. You won’t have to pose again’" (F. Gilot, Life with Picasso, New York, 1964, p. 109-110).
From that moment, Picasso captured his vision of Gilot’s essence in his mind’s eye and would continue to evoke her from memory. He would evolve his studies of Gilot toward the famous renderings of her as the Femme fleur merging her features with the shapes and forms of vegetation, which would come to typify his interpretation of her essence. Gilot describes the evolution of this motif as Picasso gradually likened her hands to growing leaves, remarking, "you see now, a woman that holds the whole world—heaven and earth—in her hand" (ibid., p. 113).
Upon Picasso’s insistence, the pair traveled to the South of France during the summer of 1946, whereupon Portrait de Françoise would be executed. Their love for one another was conceived in the context of their shared love of art, and a passionate intensity ensued in their relationship as each attempted to assert themselves, challenged by the contrasting essence of each others’ personality; Picasso often dominant and provocative, Gilot frequently perceived by him as resolutely cerebral and rational, as described in her memoir. Her aspect in this sense is captured in Portrait de Françoise, her youthful aspect rendered directly, strongly and simply. Their relationship would continue until 1953 when Gilot would famously become the first and only woman to muster the strength to leave Picasso, having borne two beloved children between them, Claude and Paloma, the former being conceived around the time of the present work.
Perfectly rendering her likeness the present work, Picasso’s portrait is remarkable in its dynamic economy of means. Gilot’s open face is depicted with thick strokes of bright, primary color, enshrined within a full halo of abundant hair. The character of the line recalls Henri Matisse’s bold, linear, portraits of the same period, activated by hue, and employing the underlying sheet of paper into a remarkably active role. Spatially enlivened by the carving of his hand in color, the warm cream tones of the paper stand in to reflect her dewy complexion. The succinct and confident line channels Picasso’s vision of her as youthful yet stoic; statuesque and composed, whilst infusing her aspect with warmth, echoing the bright and sunny climes of the South of France. The directness of her forward-facing pose echoes the idols of an ancient civilization, Picasso’s lust for arcadian themes and the characteristic enshrinement of his feminine subjects underlying her stature. Here she appears eternal, her bright eyes gleaming with a goddess-like power.