Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
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Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Coq

Details
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
Coq
plaster
Height (excluding base): 8 5/8 in. (22 cm.)
Executed in Boisgeloup in 1933; this work is unique
Provenance
Marina Picasso, Paris.
Galerie Jan Krugier, Geneva.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.
Literature
Brassaï & D.H. Kahnweiler, Les sculptures de Picasso, Paris, 1949, no. 175.
P. Daix, La vie de peintre de Pablo Picasso, Paris, 1977, p. 386.
The Picasso Project (ed.), Picasso's Paintings, Watercolours, Drawings and Sculpture: Surrealism, 1930-1936, San Francisco, 1997, no. 33-107 (illustrated p. 191).
W. Spies & C. Piot, Picasso, The Sculptures, Stuttgart, 2000, no. 154 (bronze cast illustrated p. 356).
Exhibited
New York, Jan Krugier Gallery, Picasso, petits formats. Works from the Marina Picasso Collection, 1989, no. 53.
Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Picasso sculpteur, June - September 2000, no. 117.
Special notice
VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.

Lot Essay

The present work is one of three representations of the Coq that Picasso produced in Boisgeloup in the early 1930s. Werner Spies has drawn attention to the fact that Picasso's representations of animals appear to be far more grounded in reality than his depictions of the human face or body and often depict one single, unmistakeable movement or posture (W. Spies & C. Piot, op. cit., p. 176). The first version of the Coq (S. 134, of which there exist both the original plaster and an intermediate plaster), was executed in 1932 and is perhaps the most flamboyant version, displaying torsion and movement through its twisted neck and curled tail feathers. The following year Picasso returned to the motif and executed a further two versions of the Coq in plaster (S. 154 & 155; the present work & Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisberg respectively). Both these version are more static in their pose than the 1932 version, the present work perhaps even more serene in its stance than the Lehmbruck Museum version. However, both of the later versions are executed with a thickly worked plaster surface whose rich, turbulent texture gives life to the animal. The present work was later cast in bronze in an edition of two, but this original plaster version is unique.

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