Pablo Picasso

Hugh Willoughby, Hove, England (by 1934)

J. Bomford, England

Gimpel Fils, London

Allan D. Emil, New York (acquired from the above in 1956)

Acquired by descent from the above

London, Tate Gallery, Drawings and Paintings by Picasso, from the collection of Mr. Hugh Willoughby, 1934

Cheltenham, Cheltenham Art Gallery, 1935

Cheltenham, Cheltenham Art Gallery, 1937

London, Eugene Slatter Gallery, Picasso Loan Exhibition: Collection of Hugh Willoughby, 1945, no. 9

London, Gimpel Fils, Collectors' Choice VI, 1956, no. 8

American Federation of the Arts, 1963, no. 37

Christian Zervos, Cahiers d'Art, vol. 7, Paris, 1932, illustrated p. 170

Robert Melville, Picasso: Master of the Phantom, London and New York, 1939, pp. 17-18, illustrated pl. II

Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, Oeuvres de 1926 à 1932, vol. 7, Paris, 1955, no. 65, illustrated pl. 29

Lydia Gasman, "Mystery, Magic and Love in Picasso, 1925-1938: Picasso and the Surrealist Poets," PhD diss., Columbia University, 1981, p. 1013, illustrated pl. 303

The Picasso Project, ed., Picasso's Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings and Sculpture. Towards Surrealism, 1925-1929, San Francisco, 1996, no. 27-007, illustrated p. 80

Anne Strathie & Sophia Wilson, Hugh Willoughby: The Man Who Loved Picassos, Cheltenham, 2009, p. 22, illustrated in situ at 1937 exhibition p. 22

Very good condition. Original canvas, the tacking edges have been reinforced. There is some stable craqueleur in the thick black pigment. Under ultra-violet light, there are two, ¼ inch, square retouchings around the "X" marks on the upper right side of the painting, as well as four pin-sized spots in this area. Additionally, there is a smaller than 1/8 inch spot in the thick black line that defines the figure's jaw. Otherwise, the pigment is well preserved.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

By combining the spatial ambiguities of Synthetic Cubism with the hyperbolic contortions of Surrealism, Picasso created a rich picture puzzle in his 1927 oil, Guitare accrochée au mur.  The instrument is identifiable by the vertical lines of the strings, the round sound hole in the center, and the horizontal frets on the neck that culminate in two circular tuning pegs.  The guitar is spliced into sections and interspersed with the wallpaper and moulding.  Picasso applied the Cubist technique of representing common objects with recognizable elements seen from multiple viewpoints instead of painting a traditional, coherent likeness. 

Guitare accrochée au mur stands out among Picasso's guitars of this period because of its anthropomorphic quality.  The sound hole resembles an eye, and the sickle-shaped middle section of the guitar recalls the distorted heads and vagina dentata silhouettes Picasso painted at this time (fig. 1), particularly those inspired by his wife Olga.  In 1927, Picasso was at the height of his Surrealist stage.  He had met André Breton (1896-1966) not long before the writer published the first Surrealist manifesto in 1924, citing Picasso as a forefather of the new movement.  Like the Surrealists, Picasso bucked conventions in his daring experiments with form and technique, but his aims were completely different from those Breton espoused.  Picasso's art was inspired by what he saw around him, whereas the Surrealists explored the fantastical realms of the subconscious and dreams.

Picasso's work of this period also reflects the upheaval in his personal life.  He felt trapped in his marriage to Russian dancer Olga Khokhlova (1891-1955) and expressed his frustration with dry brushwork and twisted forms, as seen here.  In January 1927, right around the time he painted this picture, Picasso met his next great love, Marie-Thérèse Walter (1909-1977).  Guitare accrochée au mur teeters on the brink of the major shift in Picasso's style fueled by his passionate affair with Marie-Thérèse.  Picasso's biographer John Richardson notes that, "As he had done with his beloved Eva in certain cubist paintings, he transforms Marie-Thérèse into a stringed instrument: often into the ideogram of a guitar hanging on a wall" (J. Richardson, A Life of Picasso: The Triumphant Years 1917-1932, New York, 1991, p. 332).

Throughout his career, the guitar was one of Picasso's primary motifs.  He not only associated the instrument with the curves of a woman's body but also with his Spanish heritage.  Picasso's lover during his early Cubist stage, Fernande Olivier (1881-1966), wrote in her memoirs, "What [Picasso] did like was the guitar, guitarists, Spanish dancing and gypsy dancers – everything that reminded him of his own country" (F. Olivier, Loving Picasso, New York, 2001, p. 200).  In Spanish culture, guitars hang above the hearth, and Picasso continued this tradition in his studios, always working among the stringed instruments that figure so prominently in his oeuvre.

Between 1934 and 1945, Guitare accrochée au mur was included in several exhibitions of the collection of Hugh Willoughby (1884-1952), an Englishman from Hove who amassed "one of the best Picasso collections in the country," according to the Birmingham Evening Dispatch in 1937 (fig. 3).  In the catalogue for the 1945 exhibition, critic Robert Melville interpreted this painting as "Cubism in the service of a romantic mood.  The texture of the paint and the soft browns and greens suggest evening light and reverie.  The subtle interpenetration of wallpaper and guitar, and the intervention of an extra piece of wallpaper, tilted, angular and faintly receding, create a spatial ambiguity which is a kind of visual equivalent to time confusions in the memory" (R. Melville, Picasso loan exhibition, Collection of Hugh Willoughby, London, 1945, p. 6). 

Guitare accrochée au mur later belonged to the American collector Allan D. Emil (1898-1976), who was a noted lawyer, philanthropist and patron of the arts.  Emil was a great admirer of Picasso, and his tributes to the artist include the commission of the large Head of Sylvette that stands on the grounds of New York University.  The present work, which remained with Emil until his death in 1976, was inherited by his son, the late Arthur D. Emil.

This work has been requested for the forthcoming exhibition "Picasso in Britain" to be held at the Tate Britain from February 15 through July 15 2012 and The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art from August 4 through November 4, 2012.