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Lot Essay
In Tête de femme Picasso portrayed Jacqueline Roche, who in 1954 had recently become his new companion and lover. The artist first met Jacqueline in the fall of 1952. She was a cousin of Suzanne Ramié, who with her husband Georges ran the Madoura pottery works in Vallauris, where Picasso made his ceramics. Picasso's relationship with Françoise Gilot finally came to an end in the fall of 1953. On 2-3 June 1954, Picasso painted two profile portraits of Jacqueline--refferring to her as 'Madame Z,' an allusion to her house, 'Le Ziquet,' near Golfe-Juan--affirming the seriousness of their relationship (Zervos, vol. 16, nos. 324-325). In September she and Picasso began to live together in the artist's Paris studio on the rue de Grands-Augustins, inaugurating what John Richardson has called "L'époque Jacqueline" (in Late Picasso, exh. cat., The Tate Gallery, 1988, p. 18). There Picasso drew the present portrait toward the end of the year.
Jacqueline is seen here sewing or knitting, a welcome sign of feminine domesticity for the artist, who had lived alone in his villa 'La Galloise' in Vallauris between the months of November 1954 and June 1954, without the ever-present female companionship to which he had been accustomed. This activity also brought back strong recollections of his youth. His maternal aunts Eladia and Eloisa, who lived with his parents in Barcelona, sewed and made embroidery to support the family. John Richardson has written, "These women, whom Picasso remembered as a permanent feature of his childhood, deserve recognition for having beguiled their nephew's inquisitive eye with the minutiae of their ornate craft...Decorative passages in prints and drawings as late as the sixties can be traced back to the encrustations of gold braid which the aunts adorned the caps of provincial stationmasters" (in A Life of Picasso: Volume I 1881-1906, New York, 1991, p. 26). Picasso depicted his mother and sister making embroidery in an 1896 drawing (Zervos, vol. 21, no. 46).
The planar elements in Tête de femme stem directly from the sheet metal heads that Picasso made of Sylvette David in early 1954 (Spies, nos. 488-491). These heads were based on maquettes that Picasso cut from paper and folded, a nod in the direction of Henri Matisse's late paper-cuts, which Picasso admired. This process also held childhood memories for the artist--Picasso at the age of seven would borrow Aunt Eloisa's embroidery scissors to make paper dolls for his sisters. This approach is evident in the present drawing--the upper part of Jacqueline's body and her hands appear as if assembled from cut-out and folded shapes, yielding interlocking, angular forms that are strikingly cubist in appearance, not unlike drawings done decades earlier. In contrast to the flatter forms in the Jacqueline profile portraits painted in June, here Picasso has overlaid profile and frontal aspects to create a three-quarter view. The artist has emphasized the resultant sculptural effect through the extensive use of hatched shading, which imparts to Jacqueline's figure a powerful presence.
Jacqueline's classic physical traits are readily apparent in Tête de femme--her high forehead with her hair pulled back, large dark eyes and long neck--and, indeed, it was at this time that Picasso noted Jacqueline's resemblance in profile to one of the odalisques in Eugène Delacroix's painting Femme d'Algers (coll. Musée de Louvre, Paris). Less than a week after drawing this portrait of Jacqueline, Picasso proceeded to paint the first of his variations on Delacroix's Orientalist harem scene (Zervos, vol. 16, no. 342). This series was also his tribute to Matisse, the modern master of the odalisque and the paper cut-out, who had passed away the previous month. In regard to the knitting motif in Tête de femme, Picasso may well have been familiar with a 1940 drawing that Matisse executed of a woman knitting, with two large sculptures of his in the background, titled Femme tricotant au fauteuil et sculptures (G.-P. and M. Dauberville, vol. 2, no. 771).
Picasso married Jacqueline in 1961. Richardson has written, "It is her image that permeates Picasso's work from 1954 until his death, twice as long as any of her predecessors. It is her body that we are able to explore more exhaustively and more intimately than any other body in the history of art. It is her solicitude and patience that sustained the artist in the face of declining health and enabled him to be more productive than ever before and go on working into his ninety-second year. And lastly it is her vulnerability that gives a new intensity to the combination of cruelty and tenderness that endows Picasso's paintings of women with their pathos and strength" (ibid., p. 47).
Jacqueline is seen here sewing or knitting, a welcome sign of feminine domesticity for the artist, who had lived alone in his villa 'La Galloise' in Vallauris between the months of November 1954 and June 1954, without the ever-present female companionship to which he had been accustomed. This activity also brought back strong recollections of his youth. His maternal aunts Eladia and Eloisa, who lived with his parents in Barcelona, sewed and made embroidery to support the family. John Richardson has written, "These women, whom Picasso remembered as a permanent feature of his childhood, deserve recognition for having beguiled their nephew's inquisitive eye with the minutiae of their ornate craft...Decorative passages in prints and drawings as late as the sixties can be traced back to the encrustations of gold braid which the aunts adorned the caps of provincial stationmasters" (in A Life of Picasso: Volume I 1881-1906, New York, 1991, p. 26). Picasso depicted his mother and sister making embroidery in an 1896 drawing (Zervos, vol. 21, no. 46).
The planar elements in Tête de femme stem directly from the sheet metal heads that Picasso made of Sylvette David in early 1954 (Spies, nos. 488-491). These heads were based on maquettes that Picasso cut from paper and folded, a nod in the direction of Henri Matisse's late paper-cuts, which Picasso admired. This process also held childhood memories for the artist--Picasso at the age of seven would borrow Aunt Eloisa's embroidery scissors to make paper dolls for his sisters. This approach is evident in the present drawing--the upper part of Jacqueline's body and her hands appear as if assembled from cut-out and folded shapes, yielding interlocking, angular forms that are strikingly cubist in appearance, not unlike drawings done decades earlier. In contrast to the flatter forms in the Jacqueline profile portraits painted in June, here Picasso has overlaid profile and frontal aspects to create a three-quarter view. The artist has emphasized the resultant sculptural effect through the extensive use of hatched shading, which imparts to Jacqueline's figure a powerful presence.
Jacqueline's classic physical traits are readily apparent in Tête de femme--her high forehead with her hair pulled back, large dark eyes and long neck--and, indeed, it was at this time that Picasso noted Jacqueline's resemblance in profile to one of the odalisques in Eugène Delacroix's painting Femme d'Algers (coll. Musée de Louvre, Paris). Less than a week after drawing this portrait of Jacqueline, Picasso proceeded to paint the first of his variations on Delacroix's Orientalist harem scene (Zervos, vol. 16, no. 342). This series was also his tribute to Matisse, the modern master of the odalisque and the paper cut-out, who had passed away the previous month. In regard to the knitting motif in Tête de femme, Picasso may well have been familiar with a 1940 drawing that Matisse executed of a woman knitting, with two large sculptures of his in the background, titled Femme tricotant au fauteuil et sculptures (G.-P. and M. Dauberville, vol. 2, no. 771).
Picasso married Jacqueline in 1961. Richardson has written, "It is her image that permeates Picasso's work from 1954 until his death, twice as long as any of her predecessors. It is her body that we are able to explore more exhaustively and more intimately than any other body in the history of art. It is her solicitude and patience that sustained the artist in the face of declining health and enabled him to be more productive than ever before and go on working into his ninety-second year. And lastly it is her vulnerability that gives a new intensity to the combination of cruelty and tenderness that endows Picasso's paintings of women with their pathos and strength" (ibid., p. 47).