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Lot Essay
Maya Widmaier-Picasso has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
Claude Picasso has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
Animated by a gentle sense of hesitation, Homme et femme depicts a mannered, restrained embrace. A woman distractively leans against the leg of a man, who timidly poses one of his hands on her arm, encircling her from behind with a protective intent. Picasso first sketched the two figures in pencil, gaging the relationship of the two bodies in space: the man was first drawn in a more domineering pose, towering over the woman more prominently. Picasso then adjusted his composition with incredible assurance, outlining the figures with a single charcoal line, harmoniously determining their pose and mass. Although apparently simple, the pose of Homme et femme achieves the sophisticated harmony characteristic of Classical Antiquity. Juxtaposed at the centre of the sheet, the bent legs of the figures create a muscular arabesque, symmetrically flanked by the two standing legs and crowned by the mirroring pose of the arms. Although colossal in their stature, these man and woman display the grace and elegance of Classical statuary, attaining in their idealistic perfection a sense of universality.
The Classical spirit of Homme et femme and the monumental simplicity of Picasso’s lines situate the drawing in the early 1920s, at the time when the artist was exploring a ‘Neo-Classical’ style. Moving away from Synthetic Cubism, the artist had in fact resorted to weighty, sculptural figures, bearing the serious stare and dignified elegance of the Classical Age. Questioned as to why he had stopped dedicating himself wholeheartedly to Cubism, Picasso had replied: ‘a man does not live by, cannot live by a single invention, a single discovery. It’s not that he could not make do with it, but exhaustion would rapidly create public indifference. And it’s not necessarily that he actively wants to make new progress in the researches he has undertaken; it is, on the contrary, that anyone of above-average sensibility is driven by the propensity to renew himself. Only mediocrity can endure a succession of days which are all the same’ (quoted in E. Cowling, Picasso: Style and Meaning, New York, 2002, p. 392-393). Signalling a new departure in Picasso’s career, drawings such as Homme et femme witness to the artist’s necessity to explore new paths and to his growing interest in the human form that, in the 1920s, would absorb all his attention.
In its style and subject matter, Homme et femme seems to relate to a series of drawings Picasso executed in 1923, during a summer spent at Antibes. The series explored the theme of a bucolic concert improvised by Pan under the auspices of Cupid in honour of a couple, portrayed in a pose similar to that illustrated in Homme et femme (Zervos, vol. 5, 114, 118-124 & 130). Picasso explored this subject over a number of drawings, resorting to different graphic techniques. Relating to the group, Homme et femme appears to be a focused study of the couple visible in those compositions. Indeed, Picasso seemed to have explored the duo into two further sheets (The Picasso Project, 23-178, 23-179), in which he tilted the woman’s head towards the man to create a more conventional image of amorous union. Homme et femme seems thus to have been part of Picasso’s exploration of a subject which, that same year, would culminate into the seminal painting Jeune homme et joueur de flute de Pan (1923, Musée Picasso, Paris). In that important work, which Picasso would keep with him until the end of his life, the couple has actually disappeared, and so has Cupid: Pan has been left playing to an impassive, vigorous young bather. Discussing this change, William Rubin noted: ‘What makes The Pipes of Pan unique among Picasso’s monumental paintings is that its initial idea – an aubade, a lover’s serenade – entirely disappears in favour of a pastoral scene, particularly at odds in terms both humour and meaning’ (William Rubin, quoted in A. Baldassari, ‘Pompeian Fantasy: a Photographic Source of Picasso’s Neoclassicism’, pp. 79-86, Picasso: The Italian Journey 1917-1924, exh. cat., London, 1998, p. 82). It has been hinted that – in the features of the woman depicted in the Pan’s concert series – one could perceive the indirect portrait of Sara Murphy, a joyous, interesting American who, according to Pierre Daix, ‘had provoked a creative fever’ in Picasso that summer of 1923 in Antibes, signalling the departure of Olga, from the artist’s art and, soon afterwards, from his life too (P. Daix, Picasso: Life and Art, New York, 1993, p.183). Part of an important series of drawings and perhaps commemorating Picasso’s transitory fascination for Sara Murphy, Homme et femme commemorates the Classical fugues the artist composed during the summer of 1923.
Claude Picasso has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
Animated by a gentle sense of hesitation, Homme et femme depicts a mannered, restrained embrace. A woman distractively leans against the leg of a man, who timidly poses one of his hands on her arm, encircling her from behind with a protective intent. Picasso first sketched the two figures in pencil, gaging the relationship of the two bodies in space: the man was first drawn in a more domineering pose, towering over the woman more prominently. Picasso then adjusted his composition with incredible assurance, outlining the figures with a single charcoal line, harmoniously determining their pose and mass. Although apparently simple, the pose of Homme et femme achieves the sophisticated harmony characteristic of Classical Antiquity. Juxtaposed at the centre of the sheet, the bent legs of the figures create a muscular arabesque, symmetrically flanked by the two standing legs and crowned by the mirroring pose of the arms. Although colossal in their stature, these man and woman display the grace and elegance of Classical statuary, attaining in their idealistic perfection a sense of universality.
The Classical spirit of Homme et femme and the monumental simplicity of Picasso’s lines situate the drawing in the early 1920s, at the time when the artist was exploring a ‘Neo-Classical’ style. Moving away from Synthetic Cubism, the artist had in fact resorted to weighty, sculptural figures, bearing the serious stare and dignified elegance of the Classical Age. Questioned as to why he had stopped dedicating himself wholeheartedly to Cubism, Picasso had replied: ‘a man does not live by, cannot live by a single invention, a single discovery. It’s not that he could not make do with it, but exhaustion would rapidly create public indifference. And it’s not necessarily that he actively wants to make new progress in the researches he has undertaken; it is, on the contrary, that anyone of above-average sensibility is driven by the propensity to renew himself. Only mediocrity can endure a succession of days which are all the same’ (quoted in E. Cowling, Picasso: Style and Meaning, New York, 2002, p. 392-393). Signalling a new departure in Picasso’s career, drawings such as Homme et femme witness to the artist’s necessity to explore new paths and to his growing interest in the human form that, in the 1920s, would absorb all his attention.
In its style and subject matter, Homme et femme seems to relate to a series of drawings Picasso executed in 1923, during a summer spent at Antibes. The series explored the theme of a bucolic concert improvised by Pan under the auspices of Cupid in honour of a couple, portrayed in a pose similar to that illustrated in Homme et femme (Zervos, vol. 5, 114, 118-124 & 130). Picasso explored this subject over a number of drawings, resorting to different graphic techniques. Relating to the group, Homme et femme appears to be a focused study of the couple visible in those compositions. Indeed, Picasso seemed to have explored the duo into two further sheets (The Picasso Project, 23-178, 23-179), in which he tilted the woman’s head towards the man to create a more conventional image of amorous union. Homme et femme seems thus to have been part of Picasso’s exploration of a subject which, that same year, would culminate into the seminal painting Jeune homme et joueur de flute de Pan (1923, Musée Picasso, Paris). In that important work, which Picasso would keep with him until the end of his life, the couple has actually disappeared, and so has Cupid: Pan has been left playing to an impassive, vigorous young bather. Discussing this change, William Rubin noted: ‘What makes The Pipes of Pan unique among Picasso’s monumental paintings is that its initial idea – an aubade, a lover’s serenade – entirely disappears in favour of a pastoral scene, particularly at odds in terms both humour and meaning’ (William Rubin, quoted in A. Baldassari, ‘Pompeian Fantasy: a Photographic Source of Picasso’s Neoclassicism’, pp. 79-86, Picasso: The Italian Journey 1917-1924, exh. cat., London, 1998, p. 82). It has been hinted that – in the features of the woman depicted in the Pan’s concert series – one could perceive the indirect portrait of Sara Murphy, a joyous, interesting American who, according to Pierre Daix, ‘had provoked a creative fever’ in Picasso that summer of 1923 in Antibes, signalling the departure of Olga, from the artist’s art and, soon afterwards, from his life too (P. Daix, Picasso: Life and Art, New York, 1993, p.183). Part of an important series of drawings and perhaps commemorating Picasso’s transitory fascination for Sara Murphy, Homme et femme commemorates the Classical fugues the artist composed during the summer of 1923.