Picasso 1932 – The Secret Love Who Inspired a Year of Wonders
A monumental, yet remarkably tender and intimate, painting of Marie-Thérèse Walter, painted by Pablo Picasso during 1932, his ‘year of wonders’ has sold for £27,319,000 at the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale in London. She is absorbed in the act of writing, which evokes a private moment from the artist’s clandestine relationship with his most beloved muse.
Awake or asleep, writing or reading, Marie-Thérèse appears in manifold guises throughout Picasso’s oeuvre. In this painting, Picasso focuses on her innocence and youthfulness, depicting her serenely penning her thoughts.
Marie-Thérèse’s unmistakable profile and sweep of blonde hair are silhouetted in front of a window at the Château de Boisgeloup, the grand house outside of Paris acquired by Picasso in 1930. Her sensual curves are echoed by the diffused green light emanating from the gardens beyond the window – the deliberate juxtaposition of the horizontals and verticals of the window frame with the soft curves of her body masterfully emphasising her form.
- READ THE FULL RESULTS FROM THE SALE
The palette is characteristic of Picasso’s key depictions of Marie-Thérèse during this year. The composition recalls both his celebrated Cubist paintings and the series of monumental sculpted heads that he created in 1931, again inspired by Marie-Thérèse. It is the intensity and passion of the paintings from 1932 that mark them out as unique amongst the artist’s work.
Marie-Thérèse Walter entered Picasso’s life one day in January 1927, capturing his attention at first sight on the streets of Paris at a time when his turbulent relationship with his wife Olga was floundering. An intensely passionate – and creatively inspiring – relationship, this chance meeting with Marie-Thérèse galvanised his life and art. She quickly became a source of creative inspiration and veiled references to her appear in his art from that point on. However, it was only five years later in 1932 – following a landmark exhibition at Galerie Georges Petit, Paris – that the artist announced Marie-Thérèse as an extraordinary presence in his life and art through his paintings.
Picasso rarely painted his muses from life, his depictions being inspired by the memory of them and the metamorphic power of his erotic imagination. With Marie-Thérèse in particular, the artist’s inspiration reached fever pitch in the long periods they were forced to spend apart. Here, he evokes her in a quietly contemplative mood – perhaps picturing her lover as she writes.
Explore more from The Art of the Season at Sotheby's
