Pablo Picasso (1881-1976)

L'artiste nu au bord de la mer

Details

Pablo Picasso (1881-1976)
L'artiste nu au bord de la mer
signed 'Picasso' (lower right)
colored wax crayon, pen and brown ink on paperboard
3½ x 5¼ in. (9 x 13.3 cm.)
Drawn in Barcelona in 1902

Provenance

Sebastian and Carlos Junyan-Vidal, Barcelona.
M. Knoelder & Col., Inc., New York (acquired from the above, 1958).
Frank Perls Gallery, Beverly Hills (acquired by the present owner, 1962).

Literature

C. Zervos, Pablo Picaso, Paris, 1932, vol. I (oeuvres de 1895 á 1906), no. 129 (illustrated, pl. LXII).
A. Cirici Pellicer, Picasso Antes de Picasso, Barcelona, 1946, pl. 107 (illustrated).
J. Sabartés, Picasso Documents Iconographiques, Geneva, 1954, pl. 73 (illustrated).
W. Boeck and J. Sabartés, Picasso, New York, 1955, no. 18 (illustrated, p. 458).
G. Bourdaille, P. Daix and J. Rosselet, PicassoL The Blue and Rose Periods, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings 1900-1906, Greenwich, 1966, no. D.VII.8 (illustrated, p. 214).
A. Moravia and P. Lecaldano, L'opera completa di Picasso blu e rosa, Milan, 1968, p. 68 (illustrated, p. 84).
M. N. Carter, "Great Private Collections: The Obsessions of Billy Wilder," Saturday Review, December, 1980, p. 63 (illustrated).

Exhibited

Los Angeles, University Of California Art Gallery, "Bonne Fête" Monsieur Picasso, October-November 1961, no. 53.
Santa Barbara, University of California, University Art Gallery, Selections from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Billy Wilder, October-November 1966, no. 45a (illustrated).
Los Angeles Country Museum of Art, Picassos in Southern California, A Tribute to the Artist at 90, October-November 1971, no. 13.

Sale room notice

The Musée Picasso has requested this work be loaned to their forthcoming exhibition Picasso érotique which will travel to the Jeu de Paume in Paris and the Musée des Beaux Arts in Montreal in 2001.
Exhibition for this lot should read:
West Hollywood, Louis Stern Fine Arts, Picasso-Face to Face, September-October 1998, no. 18.

Lot Essay

Jaime Sabartés described this and the following two works: "Picasso returned to Barcelona at the end of December 1901...There he was a frequent visitor of the Junyer brothers, and it was there that he amused himself in drawing on the back of billheads and trade cards of their hosiery factory anything that came to mind in order to distract his ennui" (J. Sabartés, op. cit., p. 310).

Some of these drawings were included by Pierre Daix in the original compendium of Blue and Rose Period works published in 1966; others were left out of the publication because of their subject matter. Pablo Picasso agreed with this decision but told Pierre Daix that he did not regret having executed these drawings. Nearly 100 years later, these works are now appreciated as some of the artist's most charmingly intimate portraits.