Lot Essay
Picasso spent the first year of the World War II in Royan, near Bordeaux, returning in late August, 1940 to his Parisian apartment in rue La Boëtie. Accompanied by Dora Maar, he soon settled back into his old studio on the rue des Grands Augustins and spent the remainder of the war working prodigiously, refusing special favors and living very much as an ordinary citizen. "It was not a time for the creative man to fail, to shrink, to stop working," Picasso said later. "There was nothing else to do but work seriously and devotedly; struggle for food, see friends quietly and look forward to freedom." (exh. cat., Picasso, His Later Works, op.cit., p. 9)
During this period, Picasso continued to see Marie-Thérèse Walter and their daughter Maya on a weekly basis in an apartment he found for them on Boulevard Henri IV. However, it was the features of Dora Maar, his close companion since 1936, which dominated his work. Picasso painted several hundred portraits of her.
The numerous portraits of her show common individual traits,
although some are far removed from naturalistic likeness. Her
vigorously sculptured, expressive head with its characteristically asymmetric face, attracted him both as a painter and as a man.
For like all great portraitists, Picasso -- he has said himself-- is concerned not with a physical or intellectual likeness, but
with an emotional image -- the 'feel' of the subject.
(W. Boeck and J. Sabartes, Picasso, London, 1961, p. 243)
According to Françoise Gilot, Dora Maar "had a beautiful oval face but a heavy jaw, which is a characteristic trait of almost all the portraits Picasso made of her. Her hair was black and pulled back in a severe, starkly dramatic coiffure. I noticed her intense bronze-green eyes, and her slender hands with their long, tapering fingers."
(F. Gilot, Life with Picasso, London, 1965, p. 14)
As Picasso admits, his paintings of this period were not conceived as war pictures. Nevertheless, their war-time atmosphere makes itself felt at a subliminal level. This is perhaps clearest in the disquieting emotional quality of the portraits of Dora Maar, arising not only from the violence and originality of their distortions but also from the apparent contrast between the head, which is submitted to startling and inventive rearrangements, and the body, "which is more readily admissible in form.... The astonishing new organism which grows from the woman's body, occupying the position and displaying the easily recognizable features of the human head, is a significant product of familiar feelings such as love, fear and sensuality, reformed in a way that affects the subconscious and induces an avowal of its underlying truth." (exh. cat., Picasso, Tate Gallery, London, 1960, p. 50)
In the 1964 exhibition, Picasso and Man, Jean Sutherland Boggs discussed this painting:
Perhaps nothing could better express the desperate sense of
boredom and imprisonment in German-occupied Paris than this
reclining figure of Dora Maar. Even in the cushion she holds
beneath her head, one of her large, soulful dark eyes is reflected. Picasso had made studies of reclining nude figures in the months before he painted this picture, but these do not give the same sense of desolation that this shapeless dress and shoes do. The relationship of Picasso and Dora Maar, which had never been serene, was now quite often strained and difficult and these strains and difficulties are usually apparent in his portraits of her. It is only occasionally in a painting like this that Picasso was moved to something very close to compassion for her. (exh. cat., Picasso and Man, Art Gallery, Toronto, 1964, p. 132)
During this period, Picasso continued to see Marie-Thérèse Walter and their daughter Maya on a weekly basis in an apartment he found for them on Boulevard Henri IV. However, it was the features of Dora Maar, his close companion since 1936, which dominated his work. Picasso painted several hundred portraits of her.
The numerous portraits of her show common individual traits,
although some are far removed from naturalistic likeness. Her
vigorously sculptured, expressive head with its characteristically asymmetric face, attracted him both as a painter and as a man.
For like all great portraitists, Picasso -- he has said himself-- is concerned not with a physical or intellectual likeness, but
with an emotional image -- the 'feel' of the subject.
(W. Boeck and J. Sabartes, Picasso, London, 1961, p. 243)
According to Françoise Gilot, Dora Maar "had a beautiful oval face but a heavy jaw, which is a characteristic trait of almost all the portraits Picasso made of her. Her hair was black and pulled back in a severe, starkly dramatic coiffure. I noticed her intense bronze-green eyes, and her slender hands with their long, tapering fingers."
(F. Gilot, Life with Picasso, London, 1965, p. 14)
As Picasso admits, his paintings of this period were not conceived as war pictures. Nevertheless, their war-time atmosphere makes itself felt at a subliminal level. This is perhaps clearest in the disquieting emotional quality of the portraits of Dora Maar, arising not only from the violence and originality of their distortions but also from the apparent contrast between the head, which is submitted to startling and inventive rearrangements, and the body, "which is more readily admissible in form.... The astonishing new organism which grows from the woman's body, occupying the position and displaying the easily recognizable features of the human head, is a significant product of familiar feelings such as love, fear and sensuality, reformed in a way that affects the subconscious and induces an avowal of its underlying truth." (exh. cat., Picasso, Tate Gallery, London, 1960, p. 50)
In the 1964 exhibition, Picasso and Man, Jean Sutherland Boggs discussed this painting:
Perhaps nothing could better express the desperate sense of
boredom and imprisonment in German-occupied Paris than this
reclining figure of Dora Maar. Even in the cushion she holds
beneath her head, one of her large, soulful dark eyes is reflected. Picasso had made studies of reclining nude figures in the months before he painted this picture, but these do not give the same sense of desolation that this shapeless dress and shoes do. The relationship of Picasso and Dora Maar, which had never been serene, was now quite often strained and difficult and these strains and difficulties are usually apparent in his portraits of her. It is only occasionally in a painting like this that Picasso was moved to something very close to compassion for her. (exh. cat., Picasso and Man, Art Gallery, Toronto, 1964, p. 132)