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Lot Essay
When Picasso's biographer, Pierre Daix, visited the artist in the Madoura studio in Vallauris at the time that Visage de femme was executed, he was generally impressed by how 'at home' Picasso was producing his new ceramic works. Excited by the experimental possibilities created by the three dimensional forms and unpredictability of the glazes, the production of ceramics enabled Picasso to approach the creative process anew. Executed early in his collaboration with the Madoura studio, Visage de femme uses the standard press moulded platter on which Picasso first developed his technique for handling the transmutative art of ceramic glazing.
In this work, the plate is not treated as a decorated functional item but is transformed into a painting, where the object magically becomes the subject depicted. The vibrant aqua marine border, reminiscent of the Mediterranean Sea only two kilometers away from Vallauris, frames a warm flesh coloured face set into the recess of the plate. Executed with a light-hearted spontaneity, the face carries an open expression and a subtle smile, the fluid brush marks and haphazard drips breathing life into the inky elemental features. The dashed darker marks around the border can read as hair, parting in the centre and curving around under the chin. The two marks above the forehead also suggest two short horns, implying the image of a faun. Both readings find visual precedents in Picasso's work of this period. In 1947 - 48 Picasso used similar linear features on the basic plate shape provided by the Madoura studio to create a sculptural portrait of his mistress and muse, Françoise Gilot. By cutting into the edges of the platter Picasso indicated the hair's centre part and turn in by the neck. Simplified faces mounted with the spiked horns of a faun, were also a recurrent image in his ceramics and paintings from this time, inspired by bacchanalian myths of the Mediterranean. Images of both female and faun, featuring similar whimsical, childlike faces can be seen in his celebrated painting La joie de vivre, (Pastorale), 1946, Musée Picasso, Antibes.
© Succession Picasso DACS 2007
In this work, the plate is not treated as a decorated functional item but is transformed into a painting, where the object magically becomes the subject depicted. The vibrant aqua marine border, reminiscent of the Mediterranean Sea only two kilometers away from Vallauris, frames a warm flesh coloured face set into the recess of the plate. Executed with a light-hearted spontaneity, the face carries an open expression and a subtle smile, the fluid brush marks and haphazard drips breathing life into the inky elemental features. The dashed darker marks around the border can read as hair, parting in the centre and curving around under the chin. The two marks above the forehead also suggest two short horns, implying the image of a faun. Both readings find visual precedents in Picasso's work of this period. In 1947 - 48 Picasso used similar linear features on the basic plate shape provided by the Madoura studio to create a sculptural portrait of his mistress and muse, Françoise Gilot. By cutting into the edges of the platter Picasso indicated the hair's centre part and turn in by the neck. Simplified faces mounted with the spiked horns of a faun, were also a recurrent image in his ceramics and paintings from this time, inspired by bacchanalian myths of the Mediterranean. Images of both female and faun, featuring similar whimsical, childlike faces can be seen in his celebrated painting La joie de vivre, (Pastorale), 1946, Musée Picasso, Antibes.
© Succession Picasso DACS 2007