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拍品专文
Pablo Picasso executed this fantastical surreal vision while staying in Cannes, set on the sun-drenched Côte d’Azur in the summer of 1933. Fusing many of the different themes, styles and motifs that the artist was exploring at this time, this is one of a series of around thirty works on paper that Picasso made during this sojourn. Mostly set on a beach, amid neo-classical structures and ruins, these works offer a fascinating glimpse into the artist’s psyche, marrying his fantasies with the aura of antiquity that often pervaded his work created in the south.
Picasso had arrived in Cannes with his wife, Olga and their son Paul at the beginning of July, while his lover, Marie-Thérèse Walter holidayed in Biarritz, likely staying in the villa of the artist’s friend, Eugenia Errázuriz. By this time, relations between husband and wife had broken down irreparably, with the artist still completely in the thrall of the youthful Marie-Thérèse. Perhaps as a way to free himself from his increasing martial tensions, Picasso immersed himself in his art, creating works such as Composition, which conjure an imaginary, escapist realm. These drawings and watercolors—Picasso worked only in these media this summer, turning away from oil paint entirely—often feature the form of Marie-Thérèse in various guises and poses, a clear sign of his longing for her, together with often disquieting, assemblage-like figures composed of everyday studio ephemera, household objects or fragments of sculpture, which likely stand as the image of Olga. In the present work, one such figure appears to dominate the archway, its body constructed out of what appear to be pieces of rubble, with amorphously formed arms and legs hanging by strings, like deflated balloons. A pair of breasts seems to float on the other side of the composition, perhaps an otherworldly apparition of Marie-Thérèse as she drifted through Picasso’s thoughts.
The surreal nature of Composition and the accompanying series of works on paper reflects Picasso’s involvement with the Surrealists at this time. Indeed, as John Richardson has written, “The drawings, watercolors and gouaches dating from this summer at Cannes are what Picasso had in mind when he claimed 1933 as the only time his work could be described as Surrealist, given their surrealist cadavre exquis technique” (A Life of Picasso, The Minotaur Years, 1933-1943, New York, 2021, vol. IV, p. 35). Having been associated with the group since its inception in 1924, Picasso had mindfully maintained his independence from André Breton’s coterie of artists. It was in 1933, however, that the artist came the closest to fully pledging his allegiance. He participated in the Surrealist exhibition at the Galerie Pierre Colle in Paris and designed the cover for Breton’s new Surrealist periodical, Minotaure, and, as Composition demonstrates, he was increasingly channeling his fantasies and anxieties, his dreams and subconscious, into his art.
Picasso had arrived in Cannes with his wife, Olga and their son Paul at the beginning of July, while his lover, Marie-Thérèse Walter holidayed in Biarritz, likely staying in the villa of the artist’s friend, Eugenia Errázuriz. By this time, relations between husband and wife had broken down irreparably, with the artist still completely in the thrall of the youthful Marie-Thérèse. Perhaps as a way to free himself from his increasing martial tensions, Picasso immersed himself in his art, creating works such as Composition, which conjure an imaginary, escapist realm. These drawings and watercolors—Picasso worked only in these media this summer, turning away from oil paint entirely—often feature the form of Marie-Thérèse in various guises and poses, a clear sign of his longing for her, together with often disquieting, assemblage-like figures composed of everyday studio ephemera, household objects or fragments of sculpture, which likely stand as the image of Olga. In the present work, one such figure appears to dominate the archway, its body constructed out of what appear to be pieces of rubble, with amorphously formed arms and legs hanging by strings, like deflated balloons. A pair of breasts seems to float on the other side of the composition, perhaps an otherworldly apparition of Marie-Thérèse as she drifted through Picasso’s thoughts.
The surreal nature of Composition and the accompanying series of works on paper reflects Picasso’s involvement with the Surrealists at this time. Indeed, as John Richardson has written, “The drawings, watercolors and gouaches dating from this summer at Cannes are what Picasso had in mind when he claimed 1933 as the only time his work could be described as Surrealist, given their surrealist cadavre exquis technique” (A Life of Picasso, The Minotaur Years, 1933-1943, New York, 2021, vol. IV, p. 35). Having been associated with the group since its inception in 1924, Picasso had mindfully maintained his independence from André Breton’s coterie of artists. It was in 1933, however, that the artist came the closest to fully pledging his allegiance. He participated in the Surrealist exhibition at the Galerie Pierre Colle in Paris and designed the cover for Breton’s new Surrealist periodical, Minotaure, and, as Composition demonstrates, he was increasingly channeling his fantasies and anxieties, his dreams and subconscious, into his art.