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Lot Essay
Maya Widmaier-Picasso has kindly confirmed the authenticity of this work.
From August 1959 to December 1961, Picasso produced a series of works inspired by Manet's iconic and groundbreaking Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (1863, Musée d'Orsay, Paris; fig. 1). As he had previously done with Delacroix's Femme d'Algers in 1954-55, and Velázquez's Meninas in 1957, Picasso re-thought, re-elaborated and paraphrased the borrowed theme. The Suite des Déjeuners is amongst his most ambitious projects of rediscovery and re-appropriation of his art-historical past: by choosing radical and innnovative masterpieces, he consciously placed himself at the forefront of art making and creating.
Musing on Manet's masterpiece, Picasso experimented in a variety of media, from oil, to pastel, to coloured and wax crayon, to pencil drawings. A selection of the best works from this series was exhibited at the Galerie Louise Leiris, in Paris, in August 1962, whilst the art critic and avid collector Douglas Cooper, a close friend of Picasso, curated the book consecrated to the whole project, which was published in the same year by the Éditions du Cercle d'Art, Paris.
The present drawing, one of the richest and most complete interpretations of the subject, was originally executed on the half-title page of one of the 125 deluxe copies of Douglas Cooper's book. Picasso dedicated it to the photographer David Douglas Duncan (see fig.2), the author of six books on the artist's life and work.
The original book of Picasso's Les Déjeuners is sold with the present work.
From August 1959 to December 1961, Picasso produced a series of works inspired by Manet's iconic and groundbreaking Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (1863, Musée d'Orsay, Paris; fig. 1). As he had previously done with Delacroix's Femme d'Algers in 1954-55, and Velázquez's Meninas in 1957, Picasso re-thought, re-elaborated and paraphrased the borrowed theme. The Suite des Déjeuners is amongst his most ambitious projects of rediscovery and re-appropriation of his art-historical past: by choosing radical and innnovative masterpieces, he consciously placed himself at the forefront of art making and creating.
Musing on Manet's masterpiece, Picasso experimented in a variety of media, from oil, to pastel, to coloured and wax crayon, to pencil drawings. A selection of the best works from this series was exhibited at the Galerie Louise Leiris, in Paris, in August 1962, whilst the art critic and avid collector Douglas Cooper, a close friend of Picasso, curated the book consecrated to the whole project, which was published in the same year by the Éditions du Cercle d'Art, Paris.
The present drawing, one of the richest and most complete interpretations of the subject, was originally executed on the half-title page of one of the 125 deluxe copies of Douglas Cooper's book. Picasso dedicated it to the photographer David Douglas Duncan (see fig.2), the author of six books on the artist's life and work.
The original book of Picasso's Les Déjeuners is sold with the present work.