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Lot Essay
Executed sometime between the Winter of 1908 and the Spring of 1909, Femme assise is a fascinating example of Picasso's first exploratory steps towards Cubism. Belonging to what some historians have termed the artist's 'green period', Femme assise is an important example of an intense period of activity when Picasso was working heavily under the influence of Cézanne. Working closely with his friend Georges Braque to develop Cézanne's systematic approach to nature, Picasso was forging important new ground for painting by deliberately disrupting the so-called naturalistic and perspectival representation of nature that had characterized the tradition of European art ever since the Renaissance.
Mysteriously given the title Mignon by the Galerie Pierre in 1928 and also at the 1969 Béziers exhibition, the sitter for Femme assise is probably Picasso's companion Fernande Olivier (fig. 1). Fernande had been the model for his most important work of 1908, Three Women (Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg) which the artist had worked on for over a year and completed shortly before the present work in the autumn of the year. After a brief separation in 1907, Fernande had returned to Picasso and once again found herself "enshrined" in Picasso's canvases. As John Richardson has commented however, Picasso, "no longer envisioned her as the idyllic beauty of 1906 or the dog-faced woman of 1907, but as a monumental sculptural presence.... female, rather than feminine." (J. Richardson, A Life of Picasso 1907-17, vol. II, London 1996, p. 80)
Femme assise portrays Fernande as a construction of angular forms with a mask-like face. As Pierre Daix and Joan Rosselet have pointed out, the evident maturity of this work suggests a date later than 1908 for "the fine striations, the thinly brushed background, the simplification of the face, breasts and hands all seem to link this canvas to the work done at the beginning of 1909." (P. Daix and J. Rosselet, Picasso: The Cubist Years 1907-1916, London 1979, p. 237)
In the summer of 1908 in la rue du Bois, Picasso had produced a large number of exquisite landscapes and still-lives that had pushed Cézanne's theories of painting from the "cone, the sphere and the cylinder" to their logical conclusion. On his return to Paris and throughout the winter of 1908 and the spring of 1909, Picasso concentrated on developing his discoveries of the summer within a number of paintings of the seated figure. Anxious about the new ground that both he and Braque were breaking during this exciting period, Picasso remembered that "almost every evening either I went to Braque's studio or Braque came to mine. Each of us had to see what the other had done during the day." (Picasso quoted in: Exh. cat., New York, Museum of Modern Art, Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism, New York 1989, p. 358)
Braque advised Picasso to take more interest in the qualities of his paint and the rare use of the thinned and hastily painted background in Femme assise may well be the result of such advice. Working at speed, as was his manner, Picasso had forged the forms of this work together with an extreme economy of means. The face is delineated in a few simple lines whilst in the shaded colouring of the figure one can already begin to see the almost monochromatic colouring of the fully fledged Cubist works of 1911 starting to emerge. Behind the woman's head a careful green shading reminiscent of Braque's L'Estaque landscapes subtly lends the three-dimensional form to the figure. With its wealth of different brushstroke styles scratched, smudged and pasted onto the surface of the canvas the painting pulls together many of the ideas circulating in Picasso's head at this time. For unbeknown to Picasso when he painted the picture the complex mixture of formal and stylistic design displayed in Femme assise hold together in one striking single image all the seeds of Cubism.
Mysteriously given the title Mignon by the Galerie Pierre in 1928 and also at the 1969 Béziers exhibition, the sitter for Femme assise is probably Picasso's companion Fernande Olivier (fig. 1). Fernande had been the model for his most important work of 1908, Three Women (Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg) which the artist had worked on for over a year and completed shortly before the present work in the autumn of the year. After a brief separation in 1907, Fernande had returned to Picasso and once again found herself "enshrined" in Picasso's canvases. As John Richardson has commented however, Picasso, "no longer envisioned her as the idyllic beauty of 1906 or the dog-faced woman of 1907, but as a monumental sculptural presence.... female, rather than feminine." (J. Richardson, A Life of Picasso 1907-17, vol. II, London 1996, p. 80)
Femme assise portrays Fernande as a construction of angular forms with a mask-like face. As Pierre Daix and Joan Rosselet have pointed out, the evident maturity of this work suggests a date later than 1908 for "the fine striations, the thinly brushed background, the simplification of the face, breasts and hands all seem to link this canvas to the work done at the beginning of 1909." (P. Daix and J. Rosselet, Picasso: The Cubist Years 1907-1916, London 1979, p. 237)
In the summer of 1908 in la rue du Bois, Picasso had produced a large number of exquisite landscapes and still-lives that had pushed Cézanne's theories of painting from the "cone, the sphere and the cylinder" to their logical conclusion. On his return to Paris and throughout the winter of 1908 and the spring of 1909, Picasso concentrated on developing his discoveries of the summer within a number of paintings of the seated figure. Anxious about the new ground that both he and Braque were breaking during this exciting period, Picasso remembered that "almost every evening either I went to Braque's studio or Braque came to mine. Each of us had to see what the other had done during the day." (Picasso quoted in: Exh. cat., New York, Museum of Modern Art, Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism, New York 1989, p. 358)
Braque advised Picasso to take more interest in the qualities of his paint and the rare use of the thinned and hastily painted background in Femme assise may well be the result of such advice. Working at speed, as was his manner, Picasso had forged the forms of this work together with an extreme economy of means. The face is delineated in a few simple lines whilst in the shaded colouring of the figure one can already begin to see the almost monochromatic colouring of the fully fledged Cubist works of 1911 starting to emerge. Behind the woman's head a careful green shading reminiscent of Braque's L'Estaque landscapes subtly lends the three-dimensional form to the figure. With its wealth of different brushstroke styles scratched, smudged and pasted onto the surface of the canvas the painting pulls together many of the ideas circulating in Picasso's head at this time. For unbeknown to Picasso when he painted the picture the complex mixture of formal and stylistic design displayed in Femme assise hold together in one striking single image all the seeds of Cubism.