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Lot Essay
*This lot may be exempt from sales tax as set forth in the Sales Tax Notice in the back of the catalogue.
Portrait d'un jeune homme occupies a pivotal place in Picasso's oeuvre. After seven years of working in an exclusively cubist mode, Picasso had begun to re-integrate illusionistic forms into his art by the spring of 1914. According to his dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, "[Picasso] showed me two drawings which were not Cubist but classicist: two drawings of a seated man; and he said, 'Better than before, eh?'" (quoted in P. Daix, Picasso: Life and Art, New York, 1993, p. 138). Picasso continued these experiments at Avignon during the summer of 1914, producing a group of naturalistic still-life drawings, and beginning a classical painting of the artist and his model (Daix 763), which was never completed and, in fact, remained entirely unknown until after his death. Michael FitzGerald has written, these works "marked a turning point in his career. They were his first real departure from the seven-year adventure of Cubism, and they announced an engagement with Neoclassicism that would slowly grow to dominate his art during the ensuing decade" (in Picasso and Portraiture: Representation and Transformation, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1996, p. 297).
The present picture is the only completed oil painting in a series of illusionistic portraits which Picasso executed during this period. It is the only completed oil painting. The other examples are all pencil drawings and include portraits of the poet Max Jacob, and the dealers Ambroise Vollard and Léonce Rosenberg, along with two sensitive renderings of an unidentified young woman (Zervos II 922; VI 1280, 1282, 1284; XXIX 201). While the portraits of his friends are indebted to Ingres, the present painting recalls Picasso's own Rose Period. Picasso also continued working in an cubist style throughout this period, completing the great Harlequin in the autumn of 1915 (Zervos II 555). Yet despite his sustained commitment to Cubism, Picasso's naturalistic portraits prompted accusations from more dogmatic members of the avant-garde that he was repudiating modernism. Others, however, staunchly defended Picasso's new work. The poet André Salomon declared, "For Metzinger and Co., the school of Metzinger is the only way out, and they do not admit that one can make the portrait of Vollard or Max [the above-mentioned pencil portraits] after what has preceded" (quoted in ibid., p. 301).
Modern scholars have continued to debate the significance of what Pierre Daix terms "the naturalistic breakthrough of 1914" (in op. cit., 1979, p. 164). Fitzgerald advances the arguement that, "Picasso's Neoclassicism is better understood as a renewal of the avant-garde. By explicitly embracing history, Picasso escaped the strictures of an increasingly rigid modernism to define a more vital alternative. He repudiated the convention of modernism's ahistoricism in order to acknowledge its maturity, as well as his own, and rejuvenate the avant-garde by immersing it in the rich humanistic traditions that many Cubist artists and theorists denied in a search for formal purity" (in op. cit., p. 297).
The present painting was formerly in the collection of Louise Reinhardt Smith, the noted patron of modern art. She was introduced to the The Museum of Modern Art by her dear friend Alfred H. Barr, where she was a trustee for three decades.
Portrait d'un jeune homme occupies a pivotal place in Picasso's oeuvre. After seven years of working in an exclusively cubist mode, Picasso had begun to re-integrate illusionistic forms into his art by the spring of 1914. According to his dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, "[Picasso] showed me two drawings which were not Cubist but classicist: two drawings of a seated man; and he said, 'Better than before, eh?'" (quoted in P. Daix, Picasso: Life and Art, New York, 1993, p. 138). Picasso continued these experiments at Avignon during the summer of 1914, producing a group of naturalistic still-life drawings, and beginning a classical painting of the artist and his model (Daix 763), which was never completed and, in fact, remained entirely unknown until after his death. Michael FitzGerald has written, these works "marked a turning point in his career. They were his first real departure from the seven-year adventure of Cubism, and they announced an engagement with Neoclassicism that would slowly grow to dominate his art during the ensuing decade" (in Picasso and Portraiture: Representation and Transformation, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1996, p. 297).
The present picture is the only completed oil painting in a series of illusionistic portraits which Picasso executed during this period. It is the only completed oil painting. The other examples are all pencil drawings and include portraits of the poet Max Jacob, and the dealers Ambroise Vollard and Léonce Rosenberg, along with two sensitive renderings of an unidentified young woman (Zervos II 922; VI 1280, 1282, 1284; XXIX 201). While the portraits of his friends are indebted to Ingres, the present painting recalls Picasso's own Rose Period. Picasso also continued working in an cubist style throughout this period, completing the great Harlequin in the autumn of 1915 (Zervos II 555). Yet despite his sustained commitment to Cubism, Picasso's naturalistic portraits prompted accusations from more dogmatic members of the avant-garde that he was repudiating modernism. Others, however, staunchly defended Picasso's new work. The poet André Salomon declared, "For Metzinger and Co., the school of Metzinger is the only way out, and they do not admit that one can make the portrait of Vollard or Max [the above-mentioned pencil portraits] after what has preceded" (quoted in ibid., p. 301).
Modern scholars have continued to debate the significance of what Pierre Daix terms "the naturalistic breakthrough of 1914" (in op. cit., 1979, p. 164). Fitzgerald advances the arguement that, "Picasso's Neoclassicism is better understood as a renewal of the avant-garde. By explicitly embracing history, Picasso escaped the strictures of an increasingly rigid modernism to define a more vital alternative. He repudiated the convention of modernism's ahistoricism in order to acknowledge its maturity, as well as his own, and rejuvenate the avant-garde by immersing it in the rich humanistic traditions that many Cubist artists and theorists denied in a search for formal purity" (in op. cit., p. 297).
The present painting was formerly in the collection of Louise Reinhardt Smith, the noted patron of modern art. She was introduced to the The Museum of Modern Art by her dear friend Alfred H. Barr, where she was a trustee for three decades.