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拍品專文
‘A dot for the breast, a line for the painter, five spots of colour for the foot, a few strokes of pink and green… That’s enough, isn’t it? What else do I need to do? What can I add to that? It has all been said’
(Picasso, quoted in B. Léal et al., The Ultimate Picasso, New York, 2003, p. 464).
At the beginning of 1963, Pablo Picasso became obsessed by a subject that had stood at the heart of his art for the entirety of his career. Over the course of two weeks in February, he filled the pages of a small carnet with more than two dozen sketches of a studio interior in which a painter is seen working at his easel in the presence of a reclining nude model (Musée Picasso, Carnet no. 59). On 2 March he began the first of an extended series of oil paintings on this theme (Zervos, vol. 23, no. 154; Kunstmuseum St. Gallen). Hélène Parmelin, the wife of painter Edouard Pignon, both of whom were close friends of the artist, recounted the excitement surrounding the inception of these works: “Picasso lets loose. He paints ‘The Painter and his Model’. And from that moment on he paints like a madman, perhaps never before with such frenzy” (Picasso: The Artist and His Model, New York, 1965, p. 10). On 27 March, Picasso acknowledged that he was in the grip of a new and compelling inspiration when he declared to Michel Leiris: “Painting is stronger than I am. It makes me do what it wants” (quoted in P. Daix, Picasso: Life and Art, New York, 1993, p. 349).
From this point until 1965 Picasso painted and drew mostly variations on this theme. The artist and model appear together, as in Le peintre et son modèle, or alone as male or female portraits and nude figure paintings. The male subjects are almost invariably stand-ins for Picasso himself—in the present work he is sporting the artist’s signature blue-and-white striped Breton top—and the models are most typically the figure of his wife, Jacqueline. He gave relatively little time to other subjects, and it was not until the musketeers made their appearance in April 1967 that his preoccupation with the artist and model theme appeared to have subsided, although it was still far from having run its course.
Though the subject of the artist and model had been a prominent theme weaving through the various strands of Picasso’s multi-faceted oeuvre, never before had the artist explored so closely and with such intensity this essential artistic relationship of the painter and his subject. He finished his look backwards to the art of the great masters that had come before him—Eugène Delacroix, Diego Velázquez, Edouard Manet and Nicolas Poussin—and instead honed in on the very nature of art making itself. As if trying to find the key to his own innate abilities as a painter, he focused entirely on the realm of the studio, the private, hallowed sanctum of artistic inspiration and creativity. Here, as Marie-Laure Bernadac described, he captured upon the canvas, “the impossible, the secret alchemy that takes place between the real model, the artist’s vision and feeling, and the reality of paint” (Late Picasso, exh. cat., The Tate Gallery, London, 1988, p. 76).
In depicting the enigmatic relationship between the artist and the subject, Picasso pushed the boundaries of painterly representation to their extreme. With works such as Le peintre et son modèle, he conveyed the scene with an impressive economy of means. Composed of gestural brushstrokes and a palette of vibrant color—green, pink and golden ochre—this work is constructed with instinctive, assured lines and forms. While the nude is outlined in pink, with her legs depicted in strokes of green, by contrast, the figure of the painter, upright and active, is shown with sweeps of darker paint, the antithesis of the voluptuous curves of the model in front of him. This spontaneity is a reflection of the sense of freedom that governed Picasso’s painting during this intensely creative period.
On the heels of the successful Ann and Gordon Getty Collection sales last fall, Christie's is now honored to offer this Picasso for sale, proceeds of which will benefit arts and science charities.
(Picasso, quoted in B. Léal et al., The Ultimate Picasso, New York, 2003, p. 464).
At the beginning of 1963, Pablo Picasso became obsessed by a subject that had stood at the heart of his art for the entirety of his career. Over the course of two weeks in February, he filled the pages of a small carnet with more than two dozen sketches of a studio interior in which a painter is seen working at his easel in the presence of a reclining nude model (Musée Picasso, Carnet no. 59). On 2 March he began the first of an extended series of oil paintings on this theme (Zervos, vol. 23, no. 154; Kunstmuseum St. Gallen). Hélène Parmelin, the wife of painter Edouard Pignon, both of whom were close friends of the artist, recounted the excitement surrounding the inception of these works: “Picasso lets loose. He paints ‘The Painter and his Model’. And from that moment on he paints like a madman, perhaps never before with such frenzy” (Picasso: The Artist and His Model, New York, 1965, p. 10). On 27 March, Picasso acknowledged that he was in the grip of a new and compelling inspiration when he declared to Michel Leiris: “Painting is stronger than I am. It makes me do what it wants” (quoted in P. Daix, Picasso: Life and Art, New York, 1993, p. 349).
From this point until 1965 Picasso painted and drew mostly variations on this theme. The artist and model appear together, as in Le peintre et son modèle, or alone as male or female portraits and nude figure paintings. The male subjects are almost invariably stand-ins for Picasso himself—in the present work he is sporting the artist’s signature blue-and-white striped Breton top—and the models are most typically the figure of his wife, Jacqueline. He gave relatively little time to other subjects, and it was not until the musketeers made their appearance in April 1967 that his preoccupation with the artist and model theme appeared to have subsided, although it was still far from having run its course.
Though the subject of the artist and model had been a prominent theme weaving through the various strands of Picasso’s multi-faceted oeuvre, never before had the artist explored so closely and with such intensity this essential artistic relationship of the painter and his subject. He finished his look backwards to the art of the great masters that had come before him—Eugène Delacroix, Diego Velázquez, Edouard Manet and Nicolas Poussin—and instead honed in on the very nature of art making itself. As if trying to find the key to his own innate abilities as a painter, he focused entirely on the realm of the studio, the private, hallowed sanctum of artistic inspiration and creativity. Here, as Marie-Laure Bernadac described, he captured upon the canvas, “the impossible, the secret alchemy that takes place between the real model, the artist’s vision and feeling, and the reality of paint” (Late Picasso, exh. cat., The Tate Gallery, London, 1988, p. 76).
In depicting the enigmatic relationship between the artist and the subject, Picasso pushed the boundaries of painterly representation to their extreme. With works such as Le peintre et son modèle, he conveyed the scene with an impressive economy of means. Composed of gestural brushstrokes and a palette of vibrant color—green, pink and golden ochre—this work is constructed with instinctive, assured lines and forms. While the nude is outlined in pink, with her legs depicted in strokes of green, by contrast, the figure of the painter, upright and active, is shown with sweeps of darker paint, the antithesis of the voluptuous curves of the model in front of him. This spontaneity is a reflection of the sense of freedom that governed Picasso’s painting during this intensely creative period.
On the heels of the successful Ann and Gordon Getty Collection sales last fall, Christie's is now honored to offer this Picasso for sale, proceeds of which will benefit arts and science charities.