During an intense period of creativity in 1960-1961, Picasso produced more than 120 sculptures. Conceived in Cannes in 1961 and cast in bronze in an edition of two, Musicien is a superb large-scale example of the sharp linear construction and curvaceous folds that characterize this period; the other bronze cast of this form is in the collection of The Museum Berggruen in Berlin; the white fired clay original is in the artist’s estate. Femme debout, also conceived in 1961 and cast in a bronze edition of two, is to be offered in Sotheby’s Modern Evening Sale on 17 May 2022 (see fig.1). The fascination of the sculptures of this period is the way they elude simultaneous perception, as Werner Spies explains: “This is due to the fact that at any given moment, we are confronted only with a planar image, an cannot – as with most modeled sculpture – anticipate the course our eye will peacefully follow.” (Werner Spies, Picasso, The Sculptures, 2000, p. 286)

The final phase of Picasso’s sculpture saw him move away from the robustly modeled forms of his ceramics towards constructions that were starkly planar and frontal in nature, recalling his early Cubist assemblages. Inspired in part by Matisse’s technique of “drawing with scissors” with his cut-outs of the 1940s, Picasso designed paper and cardboard maquettes which were then replicated exactly in a 1:1 scale at the small Société Tritub, a metal-tubing factory in Vallauris, using two different types of sheet metal: a thinner one for small works and a thicker one for larger pieces.

American sculptors John Chamberlain (see fig. 2) and David Smith also saw the potential of sheet metal as an exciting and malleable material with which to experiment. Picasso’s account to Lionel Prejger of creating his 1961 sculpture Chair finds parallels with Chamberlain’s own use of crushed automobile parts: “’That is a chair’ Picasso said to me, ‘and you see, that is also an explanation of Cubism! Imagine a chair run over by a steamroller, it would look something like this, wouldn’t it…’ After cutting the paper out along the charcoal lines, he began to fold and crumple it in a number of places. The paper vibrated; the Chair was created.” (Lionel Prejger quoted in ibid, p. 294).

The breadth and versatility of Picasso’s sculpture was revealed at the Museum of Modern Art in 1967 with the influential exhibition The Sculpture of Picasso and reinforced with the landmark show Picasso Sculpture in 2016. As Roberta Smith put it: “…this exhibition raises the question of whether Picasso was a better sculptor or painter. It’s a tough call” (Roberta Smith in The New York Times, “Picasso, Completely Himself in 3 Dimensions”, 2015).

Spies’ catalogue of Picasso’s sculptures attests that the artist was also working in clay, plaster, wood and plywood during this period, alongside his experiments with paper, cardboard and metal cutouts. Bras vertical (see fig.3), conceived in plaster and iron in 1959 and cast in bronze in March 1961, is a reminder that Picasso did not confine himself to single medium or approach to modeling; the powerful upward thrust of the arm also underscores one of the most striking shared qualities of his sculptures across different media at this period: a sense of verticality and energy, qualities that are equally evident in Musicien.