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Lot Essay
Executed on the 16th June 1940 shortly after the German Occupation of France, Buste de Femme is one of Picasso's extraordinary portraits of his mistress Dora Maar from a year in which the artist painted almost no other subject.
For Picasso, Dora Maar had, what he descibed as a "Kafkaesque" personality and, as a result he often portrayed his lover seemingly trapped in a room, imprisoned behind bars or as the apparent victim of torture, tied to a chair. "Dora was for me always a weeping woman," confessed Picasso. "And it is important, because women are suffering machines. When I paint a woman in an armchair, the armchair implies old age or death, right? So, too bad for her." (Andr Malraux, Picasso's Mask, New York 1976, p. 138).
Mature and intelligent, Dora Maar was a twenty-nine year old artist and photographer closely associated with the Surrealists when she first met Picasso in 1936. She had charmed Picasso with her fluent Spanish and her austere beauty, but more than any other feature and more than was the case with any other of his previous lovers, it was Dora Maar's face that obsessed the artist and became one of his chief mediums of expression during the extraordinarily turbulent eight years of upheaval and conflict they spent together. As Alfred Barr first pointed out, the series of 'Weeping Woman' portraits of Dora Maar acts as a 'postscript' to Guernica and in many ways the developments of the war years can also be read in Picasso's almost continuous portrayal of this remarkable woman.
In Buste de Femme, Picasso presents a very sculptural portrayal of Dora sitting upright in a hard wooden chair with her radiant features lighting up against a dark and sombre green background. Although distorted, Dora's features are immediately recogniseable, her large sickle-moon-shaped eyes seem mournful and have been delicately edged with crimson to give the hint that they are perhaps red from crying. This adds to her general expression and demeanour, which is one of sad resignment. In a charming single sweep of his brush, Picasso has with one line through Dora's dark mane of hair, bestowed his lover with a streak of grey that also adds to the sense that this woman has suffered and perhaps aged prematurely. Given the date of the painting, it becomes easy to see this work as an allegory of Picasso and Dora Maar's stoic spirit of resilience under their new darker circumstances of having to live in a country occupied by an alien and Fascist regime.
For Picasso, Dora Maar had, what he descibed as a "Kafkaesque" personality and, as a result he often portrayed his lover seemingly trapped in a room, imprisoned behind bars or as the apparent victim of torture, tied to a chair. "Dora was for me always a weeping woman," confessed Picasso. "And it is important, because women are suffering machines. When I paint a woman in an armchair, the armchair implies old age or death, right? So, too bad for her." (Andr Malraux, Picasso's Mask, New York 1976, p. 138).
Mature and intelligent, Dora Maar was a twenty-nine year old artist and photographer closely associated with the Surrealists when she first met Picasso in 1936. She had charmed Picasso with her fluent Spanish and her austere beauty, but more than any other feature and more than was the case with any other of his previous lovers, it was Dora Maar's face that obsessed the artist and became one of his chief mediums of expression during the extraordinarily turbulent eight years of upheaval and conflict they spent together. As Alfred Barr first pointed out, the series of 'Weeping Woman' portraits of Dora Maar acts as a 'postscript' to Guernica and in many ways the developments of the war years can also be read in Picasso's almost continuous portrayal of this remarkable woman.
In Buste de Femme, Picasso presents a very sculptural portrayal of Dora sitting upright in a hard wooden chair with her radiant features lighting up against a dark and sombre green background. Although distorted, Dora's features are immediately recogniseable, her large sickle-moon-shaped eyes seem mournful and have been delicately edged with crimson to give the hint that they are perhaps red from crying. This adds to her general expression and demeanour, which is one of sad resignment. In a charming single sweep of his brush, Picasso has with one line through Dora's dark mane of hair, bestowed his lover with a streak of grey that also adds to the sense that this woman has suffered and perhaps aged prematurely. Given the date of the painting, it becomes easy to see this work as an allegory of Picasso and Dora Maar's stoic spirit of resilience under their new darker circumstances of having to live in a country occupied by an alien and Fascist regime.