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Lot Essay
‘A dot for the breast, a line for the painter, five spots of colour for the foot, a few strokes of pink and green… That’s enough, isn’t it? What else do I need to do? What can I add to that? It has all been said’
(Pablo Picasso)
Framed with a golden, zigzagging border, Pablo Picasso’s Tête d’homme et nu assis presents a striking composition of two halves: on the right, a voluptuous, raven haired nude woman is reclining on a red divan, while to the left, behind a single vertical line, a male face stares directly out of the picture plane. This painting is one of a prolific and intensive series of works begun in February 1963, in which Picasso explored the theme of the artist and model. Reduced to its simplest components, Tête d’homme et nu assis dates from the midst of this frenzied period of painting, one of three works that were painted in a single day on 25th November 1964. Since his earliest days as a painter, the central, near mystical relationship between the artist, his model and the canvas itself had served as a potent subject for Picasso. Depicted in myriad ways, this theme was brought to an explosive conclusion in the final decades of Picasso’s long career, as he reaffirmed the importance of this artistic relationship, placing it at the very heart of artistic creation. Playing with reality and illusion, this motif sees Picasso engaging with the act of painting itself, relishing its capacity to conjure images, as well as revelling in its physical qualities, as he applied paint with a bold and gestural spontaneity.
At the time he painted Tête d’homme et nu assis, Picasso was leading an increasingly hermetic and secluded life. Residing in his home, known as Notre-Dame-de-Vie, set high in the hills of Mougins in southern France, he spent time with a small group of old and loyal friends, choosing not to entertain the large entourage of admirers and coterie of poets and writers that he had enjoyed having around him since his youth. With his devoted wife Jacqueline by his side, he spent long periods of time undisturbed in his studio. It is no surprise, therefore, that, living in blissful contentment within this microcosm of the wider world, he turned to the theme of the artist and model in the studio.
This theme quickly absorbed Picasso, exerting a powerful influence over the artist. ‘In February 1963 Picasso broke loose. He painted "The painter and his model". And from that moment he painted like a madman. Perhaps he will never paint again with such frenzy… It’s painting at full tilt. Creation with the breaks off. Research bursting like a bomb’ (ibid., pp. 85-86). Paintings flooded Picasso’s studio depicting myriad variations of the same subject: models in various reposes pictured both alone or in front of the artist, set in detailed interiors, undefined space or within bucolic, pastoral landscapes. ‘He painted four or five, six or seven canvases a day, not counting drawings and all the rest,’ Parmelin recalled. ‘He was possessed by a sort of enormous hunger for painting. He painted a huge number because he painted rapidly. And that is by no means an obvious truism’ (ibid., p. 21).
Over the course of 1963, Picasso’s multivalent and manifold depictions of this theme became increasingly simplified, and by the end of 1964, when he painted Tête d’homme et nu assis, the protagonists of his paintings had become reduced to a series of lines, a language of signs masterfully employed by the artist. In the present work, the artist’s face emerges from the white of the canvas and is denoted with a simple formation of black lines that stand for his eyes, nostrils, mouth and beard. Likewise, the female nude is conjured from a simplified array of circles and sweeping brushstrokes, all of which heighten her innate sensuality. Since the early 1900s when he pioneered Cubism, Picasso had constantly sought to push the boundaries of image making. Deconstructing the natural, accepted appearance of objects, people and places, and reconstructing them in the image of his own Promethean vision, Picasso consistently sought a new way of regarding the world around us. Towards the end of his life, his painting took on a new liberated and simplified style. Reduced to its barest, essential elements, his late work is painting in its purest, most direct form; a direct and immediate embodiment of life and of art making. As Picasso explained, ‘A dot for the breast, a line for the painter, five spots of colour for the foot, a few strokes of pink and green… That’s enough, isn’t it? What else do I need to do? What can I add to that? It has all been said’ (quoted in B. Léal et al., The Ultimate Picasso, New York, 2003, p. 464).
In complete command of his creative tools – namely his brush and paint – in these final decades Picasso painted with a new speed and spontaneity, able to create images from the simplest of means. With a shock of black hair, a large, almond-shaped eye and a striking aquiline profile rendered with a single line of deep green paint, the nude figure of Tête d’homme et nu assis takes on a recognisable identity from the most basic of depictions. She becomes the face of Jacqueline, the woman who ‘peoples Notre-Dame-de-Vie with a hundred thousand possibilities… She takes the place of all the models of all the painters on all the canvases…’ (ibid., p. 68). Regarded within this context, the figure of the painter could likewise be seen as Picasso himself. Standing by his canvas ready to paint the scene in front of him, he is simultaneously the creator and the subject of this ‘picture within a picture’. Artfully playing with representation, Tête d’homme et nu assis not only reveals a glimpse into the artist’s cosseted world, but also draws the viewer into his creative process. Of the playful, enigmatic layers of meaning that exist in Tête d’homme et nu assis and this series, Parmelin wrote, ‘What this artist is doing, whether he achieves it, or whether it is good or bad, no one knows. One would almost like to look at his canvas and find out. But all one sees is the Model. And the Model is painted by Picasso. Or, in any case, it is Picasso who shows her to us. One no longer knows. It is a sarabande. The painted Artist is always painting. Picasso always paints him a Model on which the Artist is knocking himself out. It is not astonishing. He changes all the time’ (H. Parmelin, Picasso: The Artist and his Model and other Recent Works, New York, 1965, p. 13).
(Pablo Picasso)
Framed with a golden, zigzagging border, Pablo Picasso’s Tête d’homme et nu assis presents a striking composition of two halves: on the right, a voluptuous, raven haired nude woman is reclining on a red divan, while to the left, behind a single vertical line, a male face stares directly out of the picture plane. This painting is one of a prolific and intensive series of works begun in February 1963, in which Picasso explored the theme of the artist and model. Reduced to its simplest components, Tête d’homme et nu assis dates from the midst of this frenzied period of painting, one of three works that were painted in a single day on 25th November 1964. Since his earliest days as a painter, the central, near mystical relationship between the artist, his model and the canvas itself had served as a potent subject for Picasso. Depicted in myriad ways, this theme was brought to an explosive conclusion in the final decades of Picasso’s long career, as he reaffirmed the importance of this artistic relationship, placing it at the very heart of artistic creation. Playing with reality and illusion, this motif sees Picasso engaging with the act of painting itself, relishing its capacity to conjure images, as well as revelling in its physical qualities, as he applied paint with a bold and gestural spontaneity.
At the time he painted Tête d’homme et nu assis, Picasso was leading an increasingly hermetic and secluded life. Residing in his home, known as Notre-Dame-de-Vie, set high in the hills of Mougins in southern France, he spent time with a small group of old and loyal friends, choosing not to entertain the large entourage of admirers and coterie of poets and writers that he had enjoyed having around him since his youth. With his devoted wife Jacqueline by his side, he spent long periods of time undisturbed in his studio. It is no surprise, therefore, that, living in blissful contentment within this microcosm of the wider world, he turned to the theme of the artist and model in the studio.
This theme quickly absorbed Picasso, exerting a powerful influence over the artist. ‘In February 1963 Picasso broke loose. He painted "The painter and his model". And from that moment he painted like a madman. Perhaps he will never paint again with such frenzy… It’s painting at full tilt. Creation with the breaks off. Research bursting like a bomb’ (ibid., pp. 85-86). Paintings flooded Picasso’s studio depicting myriad variations of the same subject: models in various reposes pictured both alone or in front of the artist, set in detailed interiors, undefined space or within bucolic, pastoral landscapes. ‘He painted four or five, six or seven canvases a day, not counting drawings and all the rest,’ Parmelin recalled. ‘He was possessed by a sort of enormous hunger for painting. He painted a huge number because he painted rapidly. And that is by no means an obvious truism’ (ibid., p. 21).
Over the course of 1963, Picasso’s multivalent and manifold depictions of this theme became increasingly simplified, and by the end of 1964, when he painted Tête d’homme et nu assis, the protagonists of his paintings had become reduced to a series of lines, a language of signs masterfully employed by the artist. In the present work, the artist’s face emerges from the white of the canvas and is denoted with a simple formation of black lines that stand for his eyes, nostrils, mouth and beard. Likewise, the female nude is conjured from a simplified array of circles and sweeping brushstrokes, all of which heighten her innate sensuality. Since the early 1900s when he pioneered Cubism, Picasso had constantly sought to push the boundaries of image making. Deconstructing the natural, accepted appearance of objects, people and places, and reconstructing them in the image of his own Promethean vision, Picasso consistently sought a new way of regarding the world around us. Towards the end of his life, his painting took on a new liberated and simplified style. Reduced to its barest, essential elements, his late work is painting in its purest, most direct form; a direct and immediate embodiment of life and of art making. As Picasso explained, ‘A dot for the breast, a line for the painter, five spots of colour for the foot, a few strokes of pink and green… That’s enough, isn’t it? What else do I need to do? What can I add to that? It has all been said’ (quoted in B. Léal et al., The Ultimate Picasso, New York, 2003, p. 464).
In complete command of his creative tools – namely his brush and paint – in these final decades Picasso painted with a new speed and spontaneity, able to create images from the simplest of means. With a shock of black hair, a large, almond-shaped eye and a striking aquiline profile rendered with a single line of deep green paint, the nude figure of Tête d’homme et nu assis takes on a recognisable identity from the most basic of depictions. She becomes the face of Jacqueline, the woman who ‘peoples Notre-Dame-de-Vie with a hundred thousand possibilities… She takes the place of all the models of all the painters on all the canvases…’ (ibid., p. 68). Regarded within this context, the figure of the painter could likewise be seen as Picasso himself. Standing by his canvas ready to paint the scene in front of him, he is simultaneously the creator and the subject of this ‘picture within a picture’. Artfully playing with representation, Tête d’homme et nu assis not only reveals a glimpse into the artist’s cosseted world, but also draws the viewer into his creative process. Of the playful, enigmatic layers of meaning that exist in Tête d’homme et nu assis and this series, Parmelin wrote, ‘What this artist is doing, whether he achieves it, or whether it is good or bad, no one knows. One would almost like to look at his canvas and find out. But all one sees is the Model. And the Model is painted by Picasso. Or, in any case, it is Picasso who shows her to us. One no longer knows. It is a sarabande. The painted Artist is always painting. Picasso always paints him a Model on which the Artist is knocking himself out. It is not astonishing. He changes all the time’ (H. Parmelin, Picasso: The Artist and his Model and other Recent Works, New York, 1965, p. 13).