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Lot Essay
Executed in 1963, Buste de femme nue belongs to a period in which Picasso consciously explored the painterly quality of his technique in a number of striking portraits of his wife Jaqueline.
Between 1963 and 1964, images of Jaqueline proliferate in Picasso's art to an extent not witnessed since his obsession with painting Dora Maar in the 1930s and 1940s. While Dora was 'the weeping woman' whose features seemed to open themselves to savage distortion and deformation, Picasso saw Jaqueline as an antique beauty whose delicate features he often rendered in profile.
During the 1950s, the classical nature of Jaqueline's features led Picasso to adopt both a Hellenistic classicism as well as a Delacroix- inspired orientalism in the way in which he chose to depict her; he emphasised her Greek nose and often depicted her in Oriental costume. In the present work, Picasso has given an almost hieroglyphic quality to Jaqueline's profile, elegantly capturing the features of her face in one powerful black line. Contrasting with the graphic simplicity of this bold line, are a variety of techniques that deliberately explore the textural quality of the paint. Picasso has shaded around the eyes with a thick grey that blends into a thin wash of blue towards her chin. The lines of Jaqueline's black hair have been scraped into the wet paint and on her forehead a creamy white has been applied straight from the tube. In what represents a new departure in Picasso's art that would characterise much of his late work, Picasso has deliberately and dramatically left the marks of his actions visible. This allows the paint to tell its own story of how this remarkable portrait was created.
In a conversation with Brassai, Picasso once explained how important to him it was to communicate as much as he could about how his works came into being : "It is not sufficient to know an artist's work - it is also necessary to know when he did them, why, how, under what circumstances... Some day there will undoubtedly be a science - it may be called the science of man - which will seek to learn more about man in general through the study of creative man. I often think about such a science, and I want to leave to posterity a documentation that will be as complete as possible. That's why I put a date on everything I do." (cited in Brassai, Picasso and Company, 1966, p. 100)
Between 1963 and 1964, images of Jaqueline proliferate in Picasso's art to an extent not witnessed since his obsession with painting Dora Maar in the 1930s and 1940s. While Dora was 'the weeping woman' whose features seemed to open themselves to savage distortion and deformation, Picasso saw Jaqueline as an antique beauty whose delicate features he often rendered in profile.
During the 1950s, the classical nature of Jaqueline's features led Picasso to adopt both a Hellenistic classicism as well as a Delacroix- inspired orientalism in the way in which he chose to depict her; he emphasised her Greek nose and often depicted her in Oriental costume. In the present work, Picasso has given an almost hieroglyphic quality to Jaqueline's profile, elegantly capturing the features of her face in one powerful black line. Contrasting with the graphic simplicity of this bold line, are a variety of techniques that deliberately explore the textural quality of the paint. Picasso has shaded around the eyes with a thick grey that blends into a thin wash of blue towards her chin. The lines of Jaqueline's black hair have been scraped into the wet paint and on her forehead a creamy white has been applied straight from the tube. In what represents a new departure in Picasso's art that would characterise much of his late work, Picasso has deliberately and dramatically left the marks of his actions visible. This allows the paint to tell its own story of how this remarkable portrait was created.
In a conversation with Brassai, Picasso once explained how important to him it was to communicate as much as he could about how his works came into being : "It is not sufficient to know an artist's work - it is also necessary to know when he did them, why, how, under what circumstances... Some day there will undoubtedly be a science - it may be called the science of man - which will seek to learn more about man in general through the study of creative man. I often think about such a science, and I want to leave to posterity a documentation that will be as complete as possible. That's why I put a date on everything I do." (cited in Brassai, Picasso and Company, 1966, p. 100)