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Lot Essay
Entitled Tête d'homme, the present painting is the finest example from a series of humorous self-portraits executed in 1964 that show Picasso dressed in a characteristic striped blue and white shirt and sporting a highly uncharacteristic beard, stubble and moustache. Painted in sweeping and flamboyant style, it is essentially a portrait of the artist in the guise of the sailor or adventurer, one of the many alter-egos that Picasso often used to portray both himself and aspects of the male.
While woman were almost always nude in Picasso's work, the male was usually shown playing some kind of role or wearing a disguise. In his late work, Picasso often returned to the theatrical quality of the pictures of his youth, but instead of painting acrobats, pierrots and harlequins - marginalised characters who live on the edge of society - Picasso created a new canon of Baroque heroes including musketeers, sailors, matadors and adventurers who often brandish an aggressive sword or a smouldering pipe and yet at the same time seem slightly comic and superfluous. In this way, they refer directly to the frustrations Picasso felt in old age. Talking to Brassaï of cigarette smoking, Picasso once remarked, "Old age has forced us to give it up, but the craving is still there. It's the same with love." (Picasso quoted in: Exh. cat., London, Tate Gallery, Late Picasso, 1988, p. 82)
While woman were almost always nude in Picasso's work, the male was usually shown playing some kind of role or wearing a disguise. In his late work, Picasso often returned to the theatrical quality of the pictures of his youth, but instead of painting acrobats, pierrots and harlequins - marginalised characters who live on the edge of society - Picasso created a new canon of Baroque heroes including musketeers, sailors, matadors and adventurers who often brandish an aggressive sword or a smouldering pipe and yet at the same time seem slightly comic and superfluous. In this way, they refer directly to the frustrations Picasso felt in old age. Talking to Brassaï of cigarette smoking, Picasso once remarked, "Old age has forced us to give it up, but the craving is still there. It's the same with love." (Picasso quoted in: Exh. cat., London, Tate Gallery, Late Picasso, 1988, p. 82)