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Lot Essay
‘Whenever I meet a friend, my first reaction is to search in my pocket for a pack of Gauloises, in order to offer him one, just as I always used to. Even though I know very well that neither of us smoke anymore. In vain, old age forces us to give up some things; the desire remains. It’s the same with love. We can’t make love anymore, but the desire is still there. I still reach into my pocket’ (Picasso, speaking with his biographer-friend Pierre Cabanne (quoted in J. Hoffeld, 'Picasso's Endgame', in Picasso, The Late Drawings, exh. cat, New York, 1981, p. 13).
Depicting a scene of lustful contemplation, Nu couché et tête d'homme exemplifies the lascivious imagery into which Picasso channeled, at the end of his career, the extraordinary force of his creative inventiveness. Lying over a geometric blanket, a woman seems to be offering herself to the eager looks of a man: her sex prominently exhibited and her hand holding one of her breast like some fragrant fruit, she appears as a willing and enticing lover. The swelling lines and voluptuous curves that Picasso used to describe the figures sublimate their desire in visual terms, while demonstrating the artist’s prodigious mastery of the medium. In 1970, at the time Nu couché et tête d'homme was executed, Picasso was turning ninety. Yet, nothing in the erotic joy expressed in the drawing and in the consummated eloquence of its lines let us guess at the artist’s old age. On the contrary, vigorous and energetic, the drawing rather appears as a bold claim to youth, to its charm and to its pleasure.
It is not difficult to guess, in the broad nose of the man and the distinctive profile of the woman, the presence of Picasso and Jacqueline themselves. At the time Nu couché et tête d'homme was executed, Picasso had almost entirely retired in his villa Notre-Dame-de-Vie with Jacqueline Roque, whom he had married in 1961. Forty-six years his junior, Jacqueline would dominate the artist’s last years, providing Picasso with comfort and support, but also with enduring inspiration. Works such as Nu couché et tête d'homme abounded in Picasso’s late years, and formed an ever-flowing narrative inhabited by sensually awaken characters, spying on each other, embracing and making love. These erotically more explicit works had followed from a large series Picasso began in 1963 on the subject of the artist and the model. Adopting a less ambiguous stance, works such as Nu couché et tête d'homme have been interpreted as the artist’s desperate cry for youth, force and pleasure. They served, Jeffrey Hoffeld would argue, a sublimating role: ‘Contortionist sexual gymnastics, if only portrayed rather than actually lived, vicariously restore confidence, relive despair, and provide recollected moments of orgasmic oblivion’ (J. Hoffeld, ‘Picasso’s Endgame’, pp. 5-15, in Picasso: The Late Drawings, exh. cat., New York, 1988, p. 13). Above all, however, works such as Nu couché et tête d'homme are moving declarations of a genius at ninety, affirming in his art the ever-young force and power of his creative spirit.
Depicting a scene of lustful contemplation, Nu couché et tête d'homme exemplifies the lascivious imagery into which Picasso channeled, at the end of his career, the extraordinary force of his creative inventiveness. Lying over a geometric blanket, a woman seems to be offering herself to the eager looks of a man: her sex prominently exhibited and her hand holding one of her breast like some fragrant fruit, she appears as a willing and enticing lover. The swelling lines and voluptuous curves that Picasso used to describe the figures sublimate their desire in visual terms, while demonstrating the artist’s prodigious mastery of the medium. In 1970, at the time Nu couché et tête d'homme was executed, Picasso was turning ninety. Yet, nothing in the erotic joy expressed in the drawing and in the consummated eloquence of its lines let us guess at the artist’s old age. On the contrary, vigorous and energetic, the drawing rather appears as a bold claim to youth, to its charm and to its pleasure.
It is not difficult to guess, in the broad nose of the man and the distinctive profile of the woman, the presence of Picasso and Jacqueline themselves. At the time Nu couché et tête d'homme was executed, Picasso had almost entirely retired in his villa Notre-Dame-de-Vie with Jacqueline Roque, whom he had married in 1961. Forty-six years his junior, Jacqueline would dominate the artist’s last years, providing Picasso with comfort and support, but also with enduring inspiration. Works such as Nu couché et tête d'homme abounded in Picasso’s late years, and formed an ever-flowing narrative inhabited by sensually awaken characters, spying on each other, embracing and making love. These erotically more explicit works had followed from a large series Picasso began in 1963 on the subject of the artist and the model. Adopting a less ambiguous stance, works such as Nu couché et tête d'homme have been interpreted as the artist’s desperate cry for youth, force and pleasure. They served, Jeffrey Hoffeld would argue, a sublimating role: ‘Contortionist sexual gymnastics, if only portrayed rather than actually lived, vicariously restore confidence, relive despair, and provide recollected moments of orgasmic oblivion’ (J. Hoffeld, ‘Picasso’s Endgame’, pp. 5-15, in Picasso: The Late Drawings, exh. cat., New York, 1988, p. 13). Above all, however, works such as Nu couché et tête d'homme are moving declarations of a genius at ninety, affirming in his art the ever-young force and power of his creative spirit.