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拍品專文
Maya Widmaier-Picasso has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
Claude Picasso has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
The visage of Françoise Gilot emerged to figure prominently in Picasso's paintings and drawings in the spring of 1946, when they began to live together. Picasso devised for his new companion the form of the Femme-fleur, seen in the famous painting executed during this time (Zervos, vol. 14, no 167). Picasso told Françoise, "You're like a growing plant and I've been wondering how I could get across the idea that you belong to the vegetable kingdom rather than the animal. I've never felt impelled to portray anyone else this way" (quoted in F. Gilot, with C. Lake, Life with Picasso, New York, 1964, p. 119). Picasso was fond of rendering Françoise's features in ripely rounded forms, with abundant wavy hair, which often took the form of spiraling arabesques. Françoise represented youthful beauty and fertility. Indeed, she soon became the mother of Picasso's newest family, a happy development in the autumn of his years. Claude was born in May 1947, and Paloma arrived two years later.
However, increasing strain began to mark their relationship by 1950. Picasso was of course deeply involved in his painting, and he devoted most of his spare time to the French Communist Party's pro-peace activities. Françoise had little part in this--she was busy raising the children, and had also taken a renewed interest in furthering her own painting career. Picasso wanted a third child; Françoise said no. Michael FitzGerald has observed: "Picasso's portraits of her reflect this change, a growing separation that would lead her to end the relationship in September 1953." He noted how these developments are manifest in the present drawing:
... Françoise--still only twenty-eight years old--now took on features that Picasso had previously used to depict her predecessor, Dora. In a drawing of August 23, 1950, the 'Weeping Woman' reappears as a portrait of Françoise. Adopting a characteristic pose (in profile with her hair streaming down her back), Picasso conflated a schema he had often used to portray Dora with a portrait of Françoise; inside the contours of the profile, he inscribed a frontal likeness of the younger woman, so that the image is subject to a dual reading. Françoise's large eyes, long nose, and full mouth are heavily outlined and shaded; even though she is dry-eyed, the rendering evokes the incision-like tracts of the 'Weeping Woman's' tears...By the following March, she seems to have become more wan, and as Françoise continued to refuse to bear another child and increasingly matched Picasso's devotion to his affairs with her own concentration on her art and the children, he aged her substantially (in Picasso and Portraiture, exh. cat., quoted above, pp. 443-445).
There was probably another catalyst for the re-emergence of the powerful image of the "Weeping Woman," an icon of wartime suffering born in the aftermath of Picasso's famous Guernica, which the artist had painted more than dozen years before. On 25 June 1950 the armies of communist North Korea attacked the Republic of Korea to the south. United Nations forces, led by the United States, struggled to hold back and repel the invaders. Reports of atrocities, fed by the cold war propaganda mill on both sides, inspired Picasso to paint Massacre en Corée, which he completed in January 1951. (Zervos, vol. 15, no. 173; Musée Picasso, Paris). This anti-war painting hewed to the Communist Party line, and was directed primarily at American intervention in the conflict. Nevertheless, as Roland Penrose has pointed out, "there is no clue as which side is guilty of massacre. Picasso remained faithful to his hatred of military force against defenceless human beings, and by so doing he saved himself from becoming a partisan propagandist and proved the validity of his painting" (in Picasso: Life and Work, Berkeley, 1981, p. 373). Seen in light of these events, this saddened and compelling face of Françoise serves as a coded image for both the growing anxiety in Picasso's private life, and his dismay and compassion in the face of yet another violent conflagration then unfolding on the world stage.
Claude Picasso has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
The visage of Françoise Gilot emerged to figure prominently in Picasso's paintings and drawings in the spring of 1946, when they began to live together. Picasso devised for his new companion the form of the Femme-fleur, seen in the famous painting executed during this time (Zervos, vol. 14, no 167). Picasso told Françoise, "You're like a growing plant and I've been wondering how I could get across the idea that you belong to the vegetable kingdom rather than the animal. I've never felt impelled to portray anyone else this way" (quoted in F. Gilot, with C. Lake, Life with Picasso, New York, 1964, p. 119). Picasso was fond of rendering Françoise's features in ripely rounded forms, with abundant wavy hair, which often took the form of spiraling arabesques. Françoise represented youthful beauty and fertility. Indeed, she soon became the mother of Picasso's newest family, a happy development in the autumn of his years. Claude was born in May 1947, and Paloma arrived two years later.
However, increasing strain began to mark their relationship by 1950. Picasso was of course deeply involved in his painting, and he devoted most of his spare time to the French Communist Party's pro-peace activities. Françoise had little part in this--she was busy raising the children, and had also taken a renewed interest in furthering her own painting career. Picasso wanted a third child; Françoise said no. Michael FitzGerald has observed: "Picasso's portraits of her reflect this change, a growing separation that would lead her to end the relationship in September 1953." He noted how these developments are manifest in the present drawing:
... Françoise--still only twenty-eight years old--now took on features that Picasso had previously used to depict her predecessor, Dora. In a drawing of August 23, 1950, the 'Weeping Woman' reappears as a portrait of Françoise. Adopting a characteristic pose (in profile with her hair streaming down her back), Picasso conflated a schema he had often used to portray Dora with a portrait of Françoise; inside the contours of the profile, he inscribed a frontal likeness of the younger woman, so that the image is subject to a dual reading. Françoise's large eyes, long nose, and full mouth are heavily outlined and shaded; even though she is dry-eyed, the rendering evokes the incision-like tracts of the 'Weeping Woman's' tears...By the following March, she seems to have become more wan, and as Françoise continued to refuse to bear another child and increasingly matched Picasso's devotion to his affairs with her own concentration on her art and the children, he aged her substantially (in Picasso and Portraiture, exh. cat., quoted above, pp. 443-445).
There was probably another catalyst for the re-emergence of the powerful image of the "Weeping Woman," an icon of wartime suffering born in the aftermath of Picasso's famous Guernica, which the artist had painted more than dozen years before. On 25 June 1950 the armies of communist North Korea attacked the Republic of Korea to the south. United Nations forces, led by the United States, struggled to hold back and repel the invaders. Reports of atrocities, fed by the cold war propaganda mill on both sides, inspired Picasso to paint Massacre en Corée, which he completed in January 1951. (Zervos, vol. 15, no. 173; Musée Picasso, Paris). This anti-war painting hewed to the Communist Party line, and was directed primarily at American intervention in the conflict. Nevertheless, as Roland Penrose has pointed out, "there is no clue as which side is guilty of massacre. Picasso remained faithful to his hatred of military force against defenceless human beings, and by so doing he saved himself from becoming a partisan propagandist and proved the validity of his painting" (in Picasso: Life and Work, Berkeley, 1981, p. 373). Seen in light of these events, this saddened and compelling face of Françoise serves as a coded image for both the growing anxiety in Picasso's private life, and his dismay and compassion in the face of yet another violent conflagration then unfolding on the world stage.