La Coiffure (Femme se coiffant)

Entrancing and evocative, Pablo Picasso’s La Coiffure (Femme se coiffant) was executed in 1906. The charcoal composition is a paean to the female nude and her coiffure, which Picasso explores from a number of angles. Alice B. Toklas, the partner of the poet and early patron of the artist, Gertrude Stein, inherited this drawing from her and later sold it to the collectors Georges E. and Edna Seligmann. A note from Toklas, which confirms Stein's purchase from Picasso and describes the work, remains affixed to the reverse of the frame. ‘Study of kneeling nude figure and a hand,’ she wrote, ‘principle figure on the left of page represents kneeling nude, legs NOT seen, arms holding hair. Right shoulder forward. There are two attempts at placement of breasts. Right of page, three small drawings, the top, study of a hand, below the same figure as the principle but with legs drawn in. Below this one, the same figure seen from the back.’

The compilation of these figures imbues the work with a mesmerizing quality, as conventions of scale and viewpoint dissolve. Moreover, the alignment of the two smaller figures at right, one above another and on an axis, conveys a kind of motion, as if the figures are rotating. Picasso’s linework with the charcoal further enhances the feeling of transience in La Coiffure, building a tension between the corporeality evoked by his deep, masterful shading, and the ephemerality of the softer strokes in the overlapping forms and figures. The figure appears in a state of metamorphosis.

The subject of La Coiffure, a nude woman combing her hair, preoccupied the artist in the latter half of 1906. Picasso turned to the female nude as a central focus following his return from Holland in 1905, shifting away from the clothed figures that dominated his earlier works. Interested in volume and form, Picasso embarked on a series of works with the female nude as his principal theme, a number of which featured women styling their hair. Both the female nude generally, and the female nude styling her hair, have long and rich heritages in the Western art historical canon. A number of scholars, including Werner Spies, have pointed to Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres as a particular influence for Picasso’s interest in the subject between 1905 and 1906; Ingres’ Le bain turc was first exhibited in 1905 at the Salon d’Automne in Paris, and attracted significant contemporary interest. Spies described the work as ‘an encyclopaedia of the nude,’ as almost two dozen nude or half-clothed female figures are rendered in a panoply of poses (W. Spies, Picasso - The Sculptures, Stuttgart, 2000, p. 32). For Picasso's burgeoning fascination with form, Le bain turc offered a compilation of physically similar forms in a variety of positions, prompting his own explorations into the formal values of the female nude.

Picasso composed a number of works on the theme of La Coiffure, employing a range of media; from the charcoal and paper of the present work, to oil paint and canvas, and even to sculpture. La Coiffure is closely related to the bronze Femme se coiffant (Zervos, vol. 1, no. 329; see lot 306 in this sale), as well as to La Coiffure (Zervos, vol. 1, no. 336; The Museum of Modern Art, New York). In the present work, Picasso’s interest in form and its construction is clearly demonstrated with the depiction of the same pose from three perspectives. A conscious meditation on how to construe form, La Coiffure reveals the artist’s keenly analytical eye, and exemplifies his artistic process. In addition to showcasing Picasso’s technical drive, La Coiffure acts as an enchanting celebration of the body, and the repetition and variation of form and posture endow the drawing with a haunting presence.