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Lot Essay
Following his custom of spending yearly holidays at the beach, Picasso arrived with his wife Olga and their son Paulo at Cap d'Antibes, on the Riviera between Cannes and Nice, in the summer of 1923. They were joined by Picasso's mother, Señora Ruiz, who made her only trip to France to visit her son, an occasion that the artist recorded in a portrait (Zervos, vol. 6, no. 1435). The summer would prove memorable for another reason, however. The glamorous American ex-patriates Gerald and Sara Murphy, whom Picasso had known since the late fall of 1921, preceded the artist to Antibes. They had persuaded the owner of the Hôtel de Cap to remain open--Antibes was normally a winter resort for well-to-do Parisians--and provide accommodations for all.
Picasso drew prolifically that summer, making drawings almost exclusively of nude female figures--such as the present study--that use the beach at La Garoupe in Antibes as their setting (please also see lot 166). Staying at the beach, especially on the shore of the Mediterranean, usually inspired in Picasso a penchant for classical antiquity. Josep Palau i Fabre stated that "Most of the drawings from Cap d'Antibes are linear, pursuing the idea--through a profile, a face, or a body--of a classical Greece to which the artist felt he had an innate right" (in Picasso 1917-1926: From the Ballets to Drama, Cologne, 1999, p. 387). Pierre Daix observed that a new female face dominated these drawings, as well as the handful of paintings and pastels Picasso made that summer, "A beaming countenance, with a very fine brow, nose and cheekswith light-colored hair, flowing in waves down her bac..." (in Dictionnaire Picasso, Paris, 1995, p. 609). Picasso did not depict Olga in this fashion, and for many years the identity of Picasso's new model was overlooked or even suppressed. In 1995 William Rubin revealed what some had suspected all along, that Picasso's new muse was in fact Sara Murphy. Rubin has written:
By 1922, The Murphys and Picassos were seeing each other quite frequently, and Picasso's infatuation with Sara was well under way. By the summer of 1923, when they were together almost every day, he was clearly in love with her. Events of the summer of 1923 favored Picasso's suit, for Gerald was absent from Antibes for about three weeks in August, which he mostly spent closeted with his close friend Cole Porter...If a sexual adventure took place between [Picasso and Sara] at that time, it was short-lived, for Sara was--and remained--profoundly in love with Gerald and their children, and deeply attached to their unique lifestyle...Those who stress Pablo and Sara as lovers will point to drawings where she is nude in bed or reclining on the beach. But we must never forget that Picasso's drawing comes more out of his imagination--indeed, his fantasies--than his memory.
(in "The Pipes of Pan: Picasso's Aborted Love Song to Sara Murphy," Art News, vol. 93, no. 5, May 1994, pp. 138-147).
Rubin noted that Picasso made about 200 drawings and 40 paintings during the early 1920s that bear Sara's visage. Among these are important paintings that were earlier presumed to have been modeled on Olga, including the well-known Femme assise, les bras croisés, 1923 ("The Woman in White"; Zervos, vol. 5, no. 1; coll. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). X-rays have shown that the standing male figure in on the left side of La flûte de pan, 1923 ("The Pipes of Pan"; Zervos, vol. 5, no. 141; coll. Musée Picasso, Paris) was initially female and probably intended to represent Venus; she too was based on Sara Murphy.
A pose similar to that in the present drawing is also seen in another, smaller, study done at Cap d'Antibes during the summer of 1923, where the subject is seen reclining rather than seated (Zervos, vol. 5, no. 43). Picasso seems to have attempted in these exquisite, evanescent drawings to capture and possess the fleeting contours of a dream. Amanda Vaill has written," and so it is the spirit of Sara Murphy that illuminates the Garoupe drawings the spirit of unfulfilled desire and ineffable promise that has animated Neo-classicism since Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn. 'She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss' says that hymn to as yet unconsummated love: 'For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!'" (in Picasso et les femmes, exh. cat., Kunstsammlungen, Chemnitz, 2002, p. 156). Kunstsammlungen, Chemnitz, 2002, p. 156). Kunstsammlungen, Chemnitz, 2002, p. 156). Kunstsammlungen, Chemnitz, 2002, p. 156). Kunstsammlungen, Chemnitz, 2002, p. 156). Kunstsammlungen, Chemnitz, 2002, p. 156).
Picasso drew prolifically that summer, making drawings almost exclusively of nude female figures--such as the present study--that use the beach at La Garoupe in Antibes as their setting (please also see lot 166). Staying at the beach, especially on the shore of the Mediterranean, usually inspired in Picasso a penchant for classical antiquity. Josep Palau i Fabre stated that "Most of the drawings from Cap d'Antibes are linear, pursuing the idea--through a profile, a face, or a body--of a classical Greece to which the artist felt he had an innate right" (in Picasso 1917-1926: From the Ballets to Drama, Cologne, 1999, p. 387). Pierre Daix observed that a new female face dominated these drawings, as well as the handful of paintings and pastels Picasso made that summer, "A beaming countenance, with a very fine brow, nose and cheekswith light-colored hair, flowing in waves down her bac..." (in Dictionnaire Picasso, Paris, 1995, p. 609). Picasso did not depict Olga in this fashion, and for many years the identity of Picasso's new model was overlooked or even suppressed. In 1995 William Rubin revealed what some had suspected all along, that Picasso's new muse was in fact Sara Murphy. Rubin has written:
By 1922, The Murphys and Picassos were seeing each other quite frequently, and Picasso's infatuation with Sara was well under way. By the summer of 1923, when they were together almost every day, he was clearly in love with her. Events of the summer of 1923 favored Picasso's suit, for Gerald was absent from Antibes for about three weeks in August, which he mostly spent closeted with his close friend Cole Porter...If a sexual adventure took place between [Picasso and Sara] at that time, it was short-lived, for Sara was--and remained--profoundly in love with Gerald and their children, and deeply attached to their unique lifestyle...Those who stress Pablo and Sara as lovers will point to drawings where she is nude in bed or reclining on the beach. But we must never forget that Picasso's drawing comes more out of his imagination--indeed, his fantasies--than his memory.
(in "The Pipes of Pan: Picasso's Aborted Love Song to Sara Murphy," Art News, vol. 93, no. 5, May 1994, pp. 138-147).
Rubin noted that Picasso made about 200 drawings and 40 paintings during the early 1920s that bear Sara's visage. Among these are important paintings that were earlier presumed to have been modeled on Olga, including the well-known Femme assise, les bras croisés, 1923 ("The Woman in White"; Zervos, vol. 5, no. 1; coll. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). X-rays have shown that the standing male figure in on the left side of La flûte de pan, 1923 ("The Pipes of Pan"; Zervos, vol. 5, no. 141; coll. Musée Picasso, Paris) was initially female and probably intended to represent Venus; she too was based on Sara Murphy.
A pose similar to that in the present drawing is also seen in another, smaller, study done at Cap d'Antibes during the summer of 1923, where the subject is seen reclining rather than seated (Zervos, vol. 5, no. 43). Picasso seems to have attempted in these exquisite, evanescent drawings to capture and possess the fleeting contours of a dream. Amanda Vaill has written," and so it is the spirit of Sara Murphy that illuminates the Garoupe drawings the spirit of unfulfilled desire and ineffable promise that has animated Neo-classicism since Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn. 'She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss' says that hymn to as yet unconsummated love: 'For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!'" (in Picasso et les femmes, exh. cat., Kunstsammlungen, Chemnitz, 2002, p. 156). Kunstsammlungen, Chemnitz, 2002, p. 156). Kunstsammlungen, Chemnitz, 2002, p. 156). Kunstsammlungen, Chemnitz, 2002, p. 156). Kunstsammlungen, Chemnitz, 2002, p. 156). Kunstsammlungen, Chemnitz, 2002, p. 156).