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拍品专文
“The art of the Greeks, of the Egyptians, of the great painters who lived in other times, is not an art of the past; perhaps it is more alive today than it ever was.”
Pablo Picasso
Painted in 1924 and held in the same family collection since 1969, Tête de femme de profil is an elegant neo-classical portrait in oil. Picasso shapes his sitter’s delicate profile with a sgraffito technique, incising into the painted surface and articulating the contour of her visage with a sense of immediacy. He renders her in profile, gazing to the left, her hair neatly drawn back from her neck, emphasizing the clarity and sculptural simplicity of her form.
The present work belongs to a series of classically inspired figures that Picasso developed in the early 1920s. In the wake of the turmoil wrought by the First World War, artists across Europe turned to the past, drawing inspiration from Antiquity, the Italian Renaissance, and the canvases of Nicolas Poussin and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. The exaltation of the avant-garde, which had so strongly defined the pre-war period, was replaced by an embrace of harmony, tradition, and a renewed search for visual stability. Picasso’s own interpretation of neo-classicism took the form of ancient goddesses, often refracted through depictions of his wife Olga, to whom the present work is associated.
Yet, even as it invokes a classical formalism, Tête de femme de profil resists identification with any specific historical precedent. The protagonist of the present work could just as easily be an ancient Greek statue as a contemporary figure lounging alongside Picasso in Juan-les-Pins, where the work was painted. As Elizabeth Cowling observed, “It is a case of visual metaphor or simile rather than imitation or pastiche; the modern woman is equated with a Greek or Roman goddess and embodies some indefinable state midway between actuality and the immutability of an ancient work of art” (Picasso: Style and Meaning, London, 2002, p. 411). Indeed, the calligraphic spareness of Tête de femme de profil also recalls the work of Henri Matisse, whose arabesque contours balance silhouette and negative space. Here, Picasso similarly defines his subject’s profile with a restrained economy of line and without modelling, the minimal marks carrying the full presence of a regal and timeless visage.
Tête de femme de profil was previously in the esteemed collection of Max Pellequer, the French banker who assembled a significant number of early works by Picasso and later became the artist’s financial advisor and close friend. Pellequer’s collection included major works by Picasso such as La Célestine, 1904 (Zervos, vol. 1, no. 183; Musée Picasso, Paris), Trois Nus, 1906 (Zervos, vol. 1, no. 340; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), and Bouteilles, journal, verres (Bouteilles et verres), 1911-1912 (Zervos, vol. 2, no. 299; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York).
Pablo Picasso
Painted in 1924 and held in the same family collection since 1969, Tête de femme de profil is an elegant neo-classical portrait in oil. Picasso shapes his sitter’s delicate profile with a sgraffito technique, incising into the painted surface and articulating the contour of her visage with a sense of immediacy. He renders her in profile, gazing to the left, her hair neatly drawn back from her neck, emphasizing the clarity and sculptural simplicity of her form.
The present work belongs to a series of classically inspired figures that Picasso developed in the early 1920s. In the wake of the turmoil wrought by the First World War, artists across Europe turned to the past, drawing inspiration from Antiquity, the Italian Renaissance, and the canvases of Nicolas Poussin and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. The exaltation of the avant-garde, which had so strongly defined the pre-war period, was replaced by an embrace of harmony, tradition, and a renewed search for visual stability. Picasso’s own interpretation of neo-classicism took the form of ancient goddesses, often refracted through depictions of his wife Olga, to whom the present work is associated.
Yet, even as it invokes a classical formalism, Tête de femme de profil resists identification with any specific historical precedent. The protagonist of the present work could just as easily be an ancient Greek statue as a contemporary figure lounging alongside Picasso in Juan-les-Pins, where the work was painted. As Elizabeth Cowling observed, “It is a case of visual metaphor or simile rather than imitation or pastiche; the modern woman is equated with a Greek or Roman goddess and embodies some indefinable state midway between actuality and the immutability of an ancient work of art” (Picasso: Style and Meaning, London, 2002, p. 411). Indeed, the calligraphic spareness of Tête de femme de profil also recalls the work of Henri Matisse, whose arabesque contours balance silhouette and negative space. Here, Picasso similarly defines his subject’s profile with a restrained economy of line and without modelling, the minimal marks carrying the full presence of a regal and timeless visage.
Tête de femme de profil was previously in the esteemed collection of Max Pellequer, the French banker who assembled a significant number of early works by Picasso and later became the artist’s financial advisor and close friend. Pellequer’s collection included major works by Picasso such as La Célestine, 1904 (Zervos, vol. 1, no. 183; Musée Picasso, Paris), Trois Nus, 1906 (Zervos, vol. 1, no. 340; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), and Bouteilles, journal, verres (Bouteilles et verres), 1911-1912 (Zervos, vol. 2, no. 299; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York).