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Lot Essay
At once solemn and sensuous, Nu assis appuyé sur des coussins embodies Pablo Picasso’s continuing spontaneity and boundless inventiveness during the great late period of his career. Depicting the artist’s wife and final muse, Jacqueline Roque, the painting radically reimagines the art historical tradition of the reclining nude for a 20th century audience. Painted in December 1964, the work remained with Picasso until his death, and subsequently passed to the artist’s estate.
“It is [Jacqueline’s] image that permeates Picasso’s work from 1954 until his death […] it is her vulnerability that gives a new intensity to the combination of cruelty and tenderness that endows Picasso’s paintings of women with their pathos and their strength.” - John Richardson
By 1961, Picasso had settled permanently at Notre-Dame-de-Vie in Mougins, the home he acquired as a gift for Jacqueline Roque shortly after their marriage the same year. Jacqueline, Picasso’s most enduring muse, possessed dark almond-shaped eyes, sculpted brows, pronounced cheekbones, and thick black hair—features that became central to Picasso’s painting during this stage of his career. Though she never formally posed in the studio, her presence was an inexhaustible source of inspiration for the artist and came to dominate Picasso’s work throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
Between 1963 and 1965, Picasso produced a remarkable series of canvases centered on the theme of the painter and his model—a subject that captivated his imagination throughout the early 1960s and became an almost exclusive focus, particularly in 1963-1964. In some, the artist appeared as the protagonist, with or without his muse; in others, as in this work, Jacqueline is shown alone, reclining on her divan. Marie-Laure Bernadac, curator of the 1988 exhibition Late Picasso at the Tate Gallery and Centre Pompidou, shrewdly pointed out the ultimate drive behind this series: “The more Picasso painted this theme, the more he pushed the artist-model relationship towards its ultimate conclusion: the artist embraces his model, cancelling out the barrier of the canvas and transforming the artist-model relationship into a man-woman relationship. Painting is an act of love” (“Picasso 1953-1972: Painting as Model” in Late Picasso, exh. cat., Tate, London, 1988, p. 77).
The reclining nude also belongs to a long art-historical tradition that Picasso continually revisited and reinterpreted. Since the Italian Renaissance, the female nude has been one of painting’s central subjects: Titian’s Venus of Urbino (1538) established an enduring model of the reclining goddess; Goya’s La Maja Desnuda (circa 1797–1800) modernized the theme by portraying a nude figure with an assertive and unapologetic presence, confronting traditional ideals of passive femininity; and in the 19th century, Ingres and Delacroix transformed the subject into odalisques, imbued with orientalist fantasy. Picasso’s lifelong friend and rival Henri Matisse extended this lineage into the 20th century with his radiant odalisques, such as Odalisque, harmonie rouge (1926–1927).
Within this tradition, Picasso reimagined the reclining nude through his own creative lens, transforming Jacqueline into both muse and archetype. Her body is distilled into flowing curves, her most sensual attributes emphasized through simplified line. Turquoise and aquamarine flesh are contoured in deep black and offset with touches of salmon pink on her arm, her form set against a boldly striped divan and white pillow. Together, these elements evoke a Mediterranean vision of warmth and light.
Expressed through bold colors, free brushstrokes, and unrestrained imagination, Nu assis appuyé sur des coussins reveals both the physicality of the female form and the liberty of painting itself. Bernadac described this period in Picasso’s work as “characterized by the juxtaposition of two ways of painting: one elliptical and stenographic, made up of ideograms, codified signs which can be inventoried; and the other thick and flowing, a hastily applied matière of runny, impastoed, roughly brushed paint” (ibid., p. 85) The present work demonstrates both tendencies at play: the abbreviated line used to delineate Jacqueline’s body and essence, and the richness of pigment enlivening the surface with expressive vitality.
Ultimately, this 1964 reclining nude embodies the fusion of art and life that defined Picasso’s final decades. Jacqueline is both the intimate companion of the artist and the universal figure of l’éternel féminin. Through her image, Picasso explored the lineage of the great European nude, while simultaneously reinventing it for the 20th century with unflinching passion and pictorial invention.
“It is [Jacqueline’s] image that permeates Picasso’s work from 1954 until his death […] it is her vulnerability that gives a new intensity to the combination of cruelty and tenderness that endows Picasso’s paintings of women with their pathos and their strength.” - John Richardson
By 1961, Picasso had settled permanently at Notre-Dame-de-Vie in Mougins, the home he acquired as a gift for Jacqueline Roque shortly after their marriage the same year. Jacqueline, Picasso’s most enduring muse, possessed dark almond-shaped eyes, sculpted brows, pronounced cheekbones, and thick black hair—features that became central to Picasso’s painting during this stage of his career. Though she never formally posed in the studio, her presence was an inexhaustible source of inspiration for the artist and came to dominate Picasso’s work throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
Between 1963 and 1965, Picasso produced a remarkable series of canvases centered on the theme of the painter and his model—a subject that captivated his imagination throughout the early 1960s and became an almost exclusive focus, particularly in 1963-1964. In some, the artist appeared as the protagonist, with or without his muse; in others, as in this work, Jacqueline is shown alone, reclining on her divan. Marie-Laure Bernadac, curator of the 1988 exhibition Late Picasso at the Tate Gallery and Centre Pompidou, shrewdly pointed out the ultimate drive behind this series: “The more Picasso painted this theme, the more he pushed the artist-model relationship towards its ultimate conclusion: the artist embraces his model, cancelling out the barrier of the canvas and transforming the artist-model relationship into a man-woman relationship. Painting is an act of love” (“Picasso 1953-1972: Painting as Model” in Late Picasso, exh. cat., Tate, London, 1988, p. 77).
The reclining nude also belongs to a long art-historical tradition that Picasso continually revisited and reinterpreted. Since the Italian Renaissance, the female nude has been one of painting’s central subjects: Titian’s Venus of Urbino (1538) established an enduring model of the reclining goddess; Goya’s La Maja Desnuda (circa 1797–1800) modernized the theme by portraying a nude figure with an assertive and unapologetic presence, confronting traditional ideals of passive femininity; and in the 19th century, Ingres and Delacroix transformed the subject into odalisques, imbued with orientalist fantasy. Picasso’s lifelong friend and rival Henri Matisse extended this lineage into the 20th century with his radiant odalisques, such as Odalisque, harmonie rouge (1926–1927).
Within this tradition, Picasso reimagined the reclining nude through his own creative lens, transforming Jacqueline into both muse and archetype. Her body is distilled into flowing curves, her most sensual attributes emphasized through simplified line. Turquoise and aquamarine flesh are contoured in deep black and offset with touches of salmon pink on her arm, her form set against a boldly striped divan and white pillow. Together, these elements evoke a Mediterranean vision of warmth and light.
Expressed through bold colors, free brushstrokes, and unrestrained imagination, Nu assis appuyé sur des coussins reveals both the physicality of the female form and the liberty of painting itself. Bernadac described this period in Picasso’s work as “characterized by the juxtaposition of two ways of painting: one elliptical and stenographic, made up of ideograms, codified signs which can be inventoried; and the other thick and flowing, a hastily applied matière of runny, impastoed, roughly brushed paint” (ibid., p. 85) The present work demonstrates both tendencies at play: the abbreviated line used to delineate Jacqueline’s body and essence, and the richness of pigment enlivening the surface with expressive vitality.
Ultimately, this 1964 reclining nude embodies the fusion of art and life that defined Picasso’s final decades. Jacqueline is both the intimate companion of the artist and the universal figure of l’éternel féminin. Through her image, Picasso explored the lineage of the great European nude, while simultaneously reinventing it for the 20th century with unflinching passion and pictorial invention.