Lot Essay
All through Picasso's immensely varied phases certain constants have held, and his particular fascination with the female face and figure is one. "...Picasso's women exist for the sensual enjoyment of the eye and the body. They have a boundless capacity for mutability and metamorphosis, and in every phase of his work (including cubism where subject matter took second place to experimentation with form), he turned to the female as subject and inspiration. While he looked at Woman, thus making her a passive cypher of visual knowledge, she looked back taking an active role as Muse.
Picasso's art was never exactly autobiographical - but it often came close. There is a continuous weave of event and art; the daily occurrences of the artist's life - what others let slide by without recollections - became his sources...Major stylistic shifts in his art were nearly always precipitated by a change in his domestic life, either a new residence, a new mistress or wife or a new partnership." (M. Holloway, "Picasso and Women: Painting as if to Possess", in Picasso, exh. cat., New South Wales, 1984, p. 222).
In 1961 Picasso's life changed significantly: he married Jacqueline Roque, a beautiful young brunette, and they moved into Notre-Dame-de-Vie, a farmhouse in Mougins. His secluded lifestyle in Mougins, revolving around the studio and his wife, is reflected in the work he produced, of which portraits and nude studies number highly. John Richardson calls these last years, "L'Epoque Jacqueline", as "it is her image that permeates Picasso's work from 1954 until his death." (J. Richardson, Late Picasso, exh. cat., Tate Gallery, London, 1988, p. 47)
Picasso's art was never exactly autobiographical - but it often came close. There is a continuous weave of event and art; the daily occurrences of the artist's life - what others let slide by without recollections - became his sources...Major stylistic shifts in his art were nearly always precipitated by a change in his domestic life, either a new residence, a new mistress or wife or a new partnership." (M. Holloway, "Picasso and Women: Painting as if to Possess", in Picasso, exh. cat., New South Wales, 1984, p. 222).
In 1961 Picasso's life changed significantly: he married Jacqueline Roque, a beautiful young brunette, and they moved into Notre-Dame-de-Vie, a farmhouse in Mougins. His secluded lifestyle in Mougins, revolving around the studio and his wife, is reflected in the work he produced, of which portraits and nude studies number highly. John Richardson calls these last years, "L'Epoque Jacqueline", as "it is her image that permeates Picasso's work from 1954 until his death." (J. Richardson, Late Picasso, exh. cat., Tate Gallery, London, 1988, p. 47)