Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Bouteille de bass et guitare

Details

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
Bouteille de bass et guitare
signed and dated on the reverse 'Picasso 1912'
pastel on paper
18¼ x 24¼in. (46.4 x 66.6cm.)
Drawn in fall, 1912

Provenance

Galerie Kahnweiler, Paris
Galerie Simon, Paris
Dr. G. F. Reber, Lausanne
Douglas Cooper, Paris (acquired from the above, 1940)
Anon. sale, Sotheby's London, April 24, 1968, lot 137 Stieiregen (acquired at the above sale)
Anon. sale, Christie's, New York, May 15, 1986, lot 130
Stanley J. Seeger, New York

Literature

C. Zervos, Pablo Picasso, Paris, 1942, vol. 2 (Oeuvres de 1912 à 1917), no. 375 (illustrated, p. 182)
F. Russoli and F. Minervino, L'opera completa di Picasso Cubista, Milan, 1972, no. 548 (illustrated, p. 113)
P. Daix, Pablo Picasso: The Cubist Years 1907-1916, Boston, 1979, p. 287 (cited under no. 511)
J. Palau i Fabre, Picasso Cubism (1907-1917), New York, 1990, no. 812 (illustrated, p. 286)

Lot Essay

This composition is related to the pastel and charcoal drawing Bouteille de Bass et guitare, done in late 1912 or early 1913 (C. Zervos, op. cit., no. 376; formerly in the collection of Douglas Cooper). Both works share highly-keyed color, which marks a significant break from the monochromy of Picasso's Analytic Cubism. Picasso's and Braque's recent experimentation in papier colles enabled the artists to express color independant of line and form. Here the artist constructs form with color, creating a complex planar space from both the perpendicular intersecting lines and the relative warmth and coolness of the pastel tones. The bottle of Bass is clearly readable in the center of the composition; the faint profile of the guitar appears to the left and is repeated horizontally to the right of the bottle. The flattened shapes and use of color clearly point to the emerging Synthetic phase in Picasso's Cubism.