.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Vigorous, staccato brushstrokes fill Pablo Picasso’s La colline de la Californie. Painted in 1959, the panorama depicts a view from the artist’s hilltop home, the titular La Californie, in Cannes, and is one of only a handful of landscapes that Picasso painted after the Second World War. Nestled amongst the trees are the various buildings that dot the surrounding landscape, the grade of the slope suggested by their vertical organisation. Rapid, spikey brushwork defines the tree branches and shrubbery while warm chestnut tonalities make up the pitched roofs of nearby homes. La colline de la Californie conveys Picasso’s evident pleasure in his surroundings as he glanced out of his window to capture forever the view that he witnessed. Describing the approach to the villa, the novelist Hélène Parmelin wrote, ‘You leave the main road, climb by a road with numerous sharp bends, and turn into another, narrower road, that runs between walls. There is a gateway. You blow your horn. It is La Californie, in La Californie’ (Picasso Plain: An Intimate Portrait, London, 1963, p. 61).
Despite having been painted in February, La colline de la Californie still evokes the balmy Mediterranean air and lush landscape of southern France. Picasso has simplified the architecture within the scene, structuring his buildings as a series of triangles and squares. In the top right, a tower and dome are visible, perhaps it is the ‘crazy house…half Orthodox dome, half mosque’ that Parmelin described seeing from her room (ibid., p. 65). Picasso applied his pigments in thick brushstrokes, imbuing the painting with a sense of vitality and buoyancy; this is a world that has come to life.
Picasso’s years at La Californie coincided with a period of great tranquillity within his life. Several years earlier, in 1952, he met Jacqueline Roque at the Madoura pottery in Vallauris, where she was working as a sales assistant. At the time, Picasso was still living with Françoise Gilot, but their relationship had been deteriorating. Things came to a dramatic head when Gilot left the artist and returned to Paris with her two children. Shortly after her departure, Picasso took up with Roque, and she remained a constant, unflagging presence for the rest of his life. Calm and loyal to Picasso, she fulfilled every role in his life: muse, protector, assistant, and friend. As William Rubin has observed, ‘Jacqueline’s understated, gentle, and loving personality combined with her unconditional commitment to [Picasso] provided an emotionally stable life and a dependable foyer over a longer period of time than he had ever before enjoyed’ (quoted in Picasso & Jacqueline: The Evolution of Style, exh. cat., New York, 2014-2015, p. 190). Indeed, Jacqueline later said that throughout their years together, she never left Picasso’s side for more than a few hours at a time.
When they first got together, the couple moved into Picasso’s studio in Paris on the Rue des Grands Augustins. In 1955, however, they decided to return south and purchased the ornate, nineteenth century Villa la Californie in Cannes, which would remain their home for several years; life there was idyllic, with wild flowers, sweeping branches, and even a goat. From the windows, one could see ‘palm-trees, mimosas, eucalyptuses, and the tomatoes and beans which the gardener grew in the gardens below among the lawns’ (op. cit., 1963, p. 65). Visitors flocked to La Californie and they were often greeted at the station barrier by Picasso or Roque. Their home was filled with people as well as canvases and sculptures, which leaned against walls and tables, and packed the artist’s enormous studio; whatever Picasso was working on consumed him and the space as well.
Within Picasso’s prolific and diverse oeuvre, landscapes are often thought to be a relatively rare genre. In fact, this subject matter appears consistently throughout his career, beginning in his youth when he painted various scenes around La Corunna. Although conventional, it was through landscape that Picasso began to experiment by making Cezanne-style images of interlocking geometric forms. Such linear compositions lay the groundwork for his subsequent Cubist interventions including paintings of Céret and Horta de Ebro. As Gertrude Stein noted, ‘Picasso’s first cubist pictures were landscapes, he then did still lifes…’ (quoted in L. Madeline, ed., Picasso Landscapes: Out of Bounds, exh. cat., The Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina, 2023, p. 17).
For the artist, landscape was a means to explore the varied and contradictory threads of his practice, namely his enduring interest in the nineteenth century and a simultaneous desire to master all art forms. Regarding the former, he often looked back to his artistic predecessors, riffing on and refracting their imagery under his deft hand. While La colline de la Californie does not quote any specific work, the painting does align Picasso with the landscape tradition’s long history and its celebrated status in France. By choosing to paint this hill outside his home, Picasso makes clear that he is heir to this tradition.
Despite having been painted in February, La colline de la Californie still evokes the balmy Mediterranean air and lush landscape of southern France. Picasso has simplified the architecture within the scene, structuring his buildings as a series of triangles and squares. In the top right, a tower and dome are visible, perhaps it is the ‘crazy house…half Orthodox dome, half mosque’ that Parmelin described seeing from her room (ibid., p. 65). Picasso applied his pigments in thick brushstrokes, imbuing the painting with a sense of vitality and buoyancy; this is a world that has come to life.
Picasso’s years at La Californie coincided with a period of great tranquillity within his life. Several years earlier, in 1952, he met Jacqueline Roque at the Madoura pottery in Vallauris, where she was working as a sales assistant. At the time, Picasso was still living with Françoise Gilot, but their relationship had been deteriorating. Things came to a dramatic head when Gilot left the artist and returned to Paris with her two children. Shortly after her departure, Picasso took up with Roque, and she remained a constant, unflagging presence for the rest of his life. Calm and loyal to Picasso, she fulfilled every role in his life: muse, protector, assistant, and friend. As William Rubin has observed, ‘Jacqueline’s understated, gentle, and loving personality combined with her unconditional commitment to [Picasso] provided an emotionally stable life and a dependable foyer over a longer period of time than he had ever before enjoyed’ (quoted in Picasso & Jacqueline: The Evolution of Style, exh. cat., New York, 2014-2015, p. 190). Indeed, Jacqueline later said that throughout their years together, she never left Picasso’s side for more than a few hours at a time.
When they first got together, the couple moved into Picasso’s studio in Paris on the Rue des Grands Augustins. In 1955, however, they decided to return south and purchased the ornate, nineteenth century Villa la Californie in Cannes, which would remain their home for several years; life there was idyllic, with wild flowers, sweeping branches, and even a goat. From the windows, one could see ‘palm-trees, mimosas, eucalyptuses, and the tomatoes and beans which the gardener grew in the gardens below among the lawns’ (op. cit., 1963, p. 65). Visitors flocked to La Californie and they were often greeted at the station barrier by Picasso or Roque. Their home was filled with people as well as canvases and sculptures, which leaned against walls and tables, and packed the artist’s enormous studio; whatever Picasso was working on consumed him and the space as well.
Within Picasso’s prolific and diverse oeuvre, landscapes are often thought to be a relatively rare genre. In fact, this subject matter appears consistently throughout his career, beginning in his youth when he painted various scenes around La Corunna. Although conventional, it was through landscape that Picasso began to experiment by making Cezanne-style images of interlocking geometric forms. Such linear compositions lay the groundwork for his subsequent Cubist interventions including paintings of Céret and Horta de Ebro. As Gertrude Stein noted, ‘Picasso’s first cubist pictures were landscapes, he then did still lifes…’ (quoted in L. Madeline, ed., Picasso Landscapes: Out of Bounds, exh. cat., The Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina, 2023, p. 17).
For the artist, landscape was a means to explore the varied and contradictory threads of his practice, namely his enduring interest in the nineteenth century and a simultaneous desire to master all art forms. Regarding the former, he often looked back to his artistic predecessors, riffing on and refracting their imagery under his deft hand. While La colline de la Californie does not quote any specific work, the painting does align Picasso with the landscape tradition’s long history and its celebrated status in France. By choosing to paint this hill outside his home, Picasso makes clear that he is heir to this tradition.