Primitive subject: female head study

The present drawing and lot 59 are examples of John's 'primitive style'. John emigrated to Paris in September 1905 with Ida, Dorelia and the children. Although John spent a great deal of time subsequently in France, after 1907 he would not live in Paris again. Towards the end of his stay there in the summer of 1907 John met Picasso and wrote to Henry Lamb 'I saw a young artist called Picasso whose work is wonderful in Paris'. The two painters visited each others studios and John saw Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. He was impressed with Picasso's work chiefly because it was steeped in the past and inspired by Puvis de Chavannes and revealed 'elements derived from remote antiquity of the art forms of primitive peoples', Chiaroscuro, p. 69. For another example of a female head in primitive style see Christie's, London, 14 May 1993, lot 97.