Lot Essay
While designing sets and costumes for the ballet Parade in Rome, Pablo Picasso fell under the influence of the ancient and Renaissance art he saw during his stay. In the years immediately following his return to Paris in 1917, Picasso worked in two distinct styles, producing classical, figurative paintings alongside his bold, whimsical and decorative Synthetic Cubist canvases. Though seemingly in strong contrast to one another, the two approaches have been linked by William Rubin, who credits the artist's Cubist exercises with enhancing the descriptive quality of his line and the spatial structure of his compositions:
As remarkable a draughtsman as Picasso had been from the turn of the century through the Rose period, his long pilgrimage through the "primitivism" of 1906-08 and the multiple Cubisms of 1909-14 had mysteriously informed and thus transformed the quality of his representational drawing. Picasso's line was now much more taut, more wiry, and yet implicitly more sculptural than it had been before, while the infrastructure of his compositions continued to profit from the implicit grid of Cubism. (ed. W. Rubin, op. cit., p. 38)
The relationship described in this passage is clearly at work in La femme de l'artiste, a portrait of the artist's wife Olga Kokhlova, which demonstrates the Cubist-informed Neoclassicism characteristic of Picasso's oeuvre from 1918 to 1923. The frontality and solid mass of the Ingres-like figure and the manner in which the heavy bulk of her drapery flattens into a pattern of lines owe much to the Synthetic brand of Cubism, while the nuanced shading in isolated areas and the shifting perspectives are reminiscent of earlier Analytic Cubist portraits.
More significant, however, is the relationship between La femme de l'artiste and a Cubist portriat of Olga painted in the same month and year, Femme dans un fauteuil (Olga) (fig. 1). Recent infrared scans of the latter painting reveal that beneath the curvilinear Cubist portrait of the artist's wife is a classically rendered likeness of Olga nearly identical to La femme de l'artiste (figs. 2 and 3). While Picasso frequently reworked the same theme in different styles, Femme dans un fauteuil (Olga) is "one of only two instances in which we can securely demonstrate, on one single canvas, the oscillation between Neoclassicism and Cubism" (ibid. p. 42). The extent to which the finished Cubist work echoes the underpainted image is described thus by Rubin:
"Comparison between the infrared prints and the finished version of Femme dans un Fauteuil makes it clear that some of the contours of the Cubist version of Woman in an Armchair were carried over directly from the original Neoclassical image: the curve of Olga's chin, her right shoulder and arm, her left upper arm, a part of that lower arm and hand, as well as virtually the entire outline of the chair, right down to the pinched oval of the armrest. The vertical supports of the chair's back remain in the same place, while their silhouette was selectively altered." (Ibid, p. 42).
Given the identical subject matter of La femme de l'artiste and Femme dans un Fauteuil (Olga), the strong compositional parallels and the knowledge that the artist completed the paintings within days of each other, it is likely that Picasso intended two portraits of Olga in exactly the same pose, one Cubist and one Neoclassical. The almost literal translation of the subject from one language to another speaks of the artist's tendency to revisit the same themes throughout his career. In fact, the female model seated in an armchair is a frequently recurring subject, and in nearly every phase of his career he returns to it, taking his current mistress or wife as his model. Picasso once commented to Andre Malraux, "When I paint a woman in an armchair, the armchair implies old age or death...or else the armchair is there to protect her." (J. Richardson, Picasso and Marie-Thrse Walter, New York, 1985, n.p.) Given the knowledge that Olga was pregnant with Picasso's first son, Paulo, while he executed La femme de l'artiste, as well as its Cubist counterpart, it is likely that the chair in both portraits serves a protective function, sheltering both mother and child (fig. 4).
(fig. 1) Pablo Picasso, Femme dans un fauteuil (Olga), 1920
Private Collection
(fig. 2) Transmitted Infrared Vidicon image of Femme dans un fauteuil (Olga)
(fig. 3) Transmitted Infrared Vidicon image of Femme dans un fauteuil (Olga)
(fig. 4) Paulo with his mother, Olga, 1922
As remarkable a draughtsman as Picasso had been from the turn of the century through the Rose period, his long pilgrimage through the "primitivism" of 1906-08 and the multiple Cubisms of 1909-14 had mysteriously informed and thus transformed the quality of his representational drawing. Picasso's line was now much more taut, more wiry, and yet implicitly more sculptural than it had been before, while the infrastructure of his compositions continued to profit from the implicit grid of Cubism. (ed. W. Rubin, op. cit., p. 38)
The relationship described in this passage is clearly at work in La femme de l'artiste, a portrait of the artist's wife Olga Kokhlova, which demonstrates the Cubist-informed Neoclassicism characteristic of Picasso's oeuvre from 1918 to 1923. The frontality and solid mass of the Ingres-like figure and the manner in which the heavy bulk of her drapery flattens into a pattern of lines owe much to the Synthetic brand of Cubism, while the nuanced shading in isolated areas and the shifting perspectives are reminiscent of earlier Analytic Cubist portraits.
More significant, however, is the relationship between La femme de l'artiste and a Cubist portriat of Olga painted in the same month and year, Femme dans un fauteuil (Olga) (fig. 1). Recent infrared scans of the latter painting reveal that beneath the curvilinear Cubist portrait of the artist's wife is a classically rendered likeness of Olga nearly identical to La femme de l'artiste (figs. 2 and 3). While Picasso frequently reworked the same theme in different styles, Femme dans un fauteuil (Olga) is "one of only two instances in which we can securely demonstrate, on one single canvas, the oscillation between Neoclassicism and Cubism" (ibid. p. 42). The extent to which the finished Cubist work echoes the underpainted image is described thus by Rubin:
"Comparison between the infrared prints and the finished version of Femme dans un Fauteuil makes it clear that some of the contours of the Cubist version of Woman in an Armchair were carried over directly from the original Neoclassical image: the curve of Olga's chin, her right shoulder and arm, her left upper arm, a part of that lower arm and hand, as well as virtually the entire outline of the chair, right down to the pinched oval of the armrest. The vertical supports of the chair's back remain in the same place, while their silhouette was selectively altered." (Ibid, p. 42).
Given the identical subject matter of La femme de l'artiste and Femme dans un Fauteuil (Olga), the strong compositional parallels and the knowledge that the artist completed the paintings within days of each other, it is likely that Picasso intended two portraits of Olga in exactly the same pose, one Cubist and one Neoclassical. The almost literal translation of the subject from one language to another speaks of the artist's tendency to revisit the same themes throughout his career. In fact, the female model seated in an armchair is a frequently recurring subject, and in nearly every phase of his career he returns to it, taking his current mistress or wife as his model. Picasso once commented to Andre Malraux, "When I paint a woman in an armchair, the armchair implies old age or death...or else the armchair is there to protect her." (J. Richardson, Picasso and Marie-Thrse Walter, New York, 1985, n.p.) Given the knowledge that Olga was pregnant with Picasso's first son, Paulo, while he executed La femme de l'artiste, as well as its Cubist counterpart, it is likely that the chair in both portraits serves a protective function, sheltering both mother and child (fig. 4).
(fig. 1) Pablo Picasso, Femme dans un fauteuil (Olga), 1920
Private Collection
(fig. 2) Transmitted Infrared Vidicon image of Femme dans un fauteuil (Olga)
(fig. 3) Transmitted Infrared Vidicon image of Femme dans un fauteuil (Olga)
(fig. 4) Paulo with his mother, Olga, 1922