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Lot Essay
La femme au panier was Gris' last major painting. Executed during the final few months of his tragically short life - a time when the artist was suffering so much from a severe asthmatic condition that he was only able to work for a few hours each day - La femme au panier is one of his most profound achievements.
The painting explores all the central themes of Gris' art. The focus of the composition is, as is so often, a still life that has been orchestrated within the framework of a basket held by a figure that stands before a window. This angelic woman - dressed in a classical draped garb that had first appeared in Gris' work only a few years before, is articulated into the formal narrative of the painting in such a way that she becomes both a real presence and a cubist construction. Flat planes of colour link her form to that of the basket and to the oval mirror/window behind her with such subtle mastery that at first glance this entirely artificial construction seems natural. For a long time Gris had been experimenting with the motif of a still-life set before a window, but the eloquence with which the artist merges all three separate pictorial elements in this painting marks not only the artist's complete mastery of the Cubist aesthetic but also a new extension of his art that was tragically never to be developed further.
In a statement published shortly after Gris' death, the artist outlined his optimistic feelings towards the development of his last work, writing that after what he called "a sort of analytical phase" of his work, "Today at the age of forty, I believe that I am approaching a new period of self-expression, of pictorial expression, of picture language; a well thought-out and well-blended unity." (Juan Gris cited in: D. H. Kahnweiler, Juan Gris: His Life and Work, London 1969, p. 204)
The painting explores all the central themes of Gris' art. The focus of the composition is, as is so often, a still life that has been orchestrated within the framework of a basket held by a figure that stands before a window. This angelic woman - dressed in a classical draped garb that had first appeared in Gris' work only a few years before, is articulated into the formal narrative of the painting in such a way that she becomes both a real presence and a cubist construction. Flat planes of colour link her form to that of the basket and to the oval mirror/window behind her with such subtle mastery that at first glance this entirely artificial construction seems natural. For a long time Gris had been experimenting with the motif of a still-life set before a window, but the eloquence with which the artist merges all three separate pictorial elements in this painting marks not only the artist's complete mastery of the Cubist aesthetic but also a new extension of his art that was tragically never to be developed further.
In a statement published shortly after Gris' death, the artist outlined his optimistic feelings towards the development of his last work, writing that after what he called "a sort of analytical phase" of his work, "Today at the age of forty, I believe that I am approaching a new period of self-expression, of pictorial expression, of picture language; a well thought-out and well-blended unity." (Juan Gris cited in: D. H. Kahnweiler, Juan Gris: His Life and Work, London 1969, p. 204)