PABLO PICASSO | Tête d'homme

Private Collection
Sale: Finarte, Milan, 29th March 1990, lot 286
Galerie Gianna Sistu, Paris
Private Collection (acquired from the above; sale: Sotheby's, London, 11th March 2015, lot 234)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, Œuvres de 1969, Paris, 1976, vol. XXXI, no. 320, illustrated p. 95

Please note that there is a professional condition report for this work, please contact mariella.salazar@sothebys.com to request a copy.
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

In Picasso’s late œuvre, the artist recurrently depicted himself in the guise of the virile and adventurous musketeer. Executed in passionately applied brush strokes, Tête d’homme is a triumphant representation of this celebrated theme, exhibiting Picasso’s talent for using iconography shared by Old Master painters but rendering it in a strikingly fresh and gestural way. When Picasso was recuperating after surgery in late 1965, in his home in Notre-Dame-de-Vie in Mougins, he immersed himself in classical literature, devouring the works of Shakespeare and novelists such as Alexandre Dumas, Charles Dickens and Honoré de Balzac. Picasso produced an astonishing number of paintings and drawings in his final years, assuming a sense of urgency almost as if he was trying to beat the passage of time; the subject of the musketeer allowed the artist to project different aspects of Picasso’s identity. The figure of the musketeer has a long history in visual art, represented in works by Frans Hals, Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, El Greco, Diego Velázquez and Francisco Goya. The subject of the Musketeer is a pointed reference to the revered artists of the past, an affirmation from Picasso that he belonged to this lineage of great masters. More than any other artistic hero of the past, it was the work of Rembrandt that Picasso most identified with, yet the speed and spontaneity with which he painted his late works were reminiscent of the Abstract Expressionists. Rather than dwelling on the human anatomy and perspective, Picasso focussed on the elements of his subject that fascinated him and employed a contemporary style and sense of humour entirely of his own. The process of creating a picture was more important for him than the finished result: ‘I am down to the stage when the movement of my thought is of more interest to me than the thought itself’ (quoted in K. Gallwitz, Picasso Laureatus, Paris, 1971, p. 166). Brilliantly demonstrated by Tête d’homme, it is desire that radiates from Picasso’s late work; the desire to paint without restraint, thought or impairment. Aware of his advancing age, waning energies and unavoidable mortality, Picasso’s thirst for life is manifested in his musketeers, which have a vital and immediate power.

The swashbuckling character of the musketeer leaps from the page of Dumas’ novel into a new modern life on the canvas. Within the decade of the 1960s, America’s war in Vietnam was becoming increasingly desperate and Soviet forces had invaded Czechoslovakia, ending the Praque Spring, while Picasso was retreating in a world of ‘backward-looking romantics and nostalgic dreamers’ (M-L Bernadac, Late Picasso, exh. Cat., The Tate Gallery, London, 1988, p.82). As seen in the facial expression of the musketeer - one of comic confusion and shock - the work is invariably mock-heroic, with the man’s grandiose self-confidence called into question. Moreover, Picasso is arguably translating his staunch pacifism into his work by portraying a musketeer who is ordinarily inclined to bellicose behaviour but, with no sword in sight, actually looks harmless and congenial. His anachronistic attire, curled hair and beard are a fitting allusion to war itself being outdated and futile.

Picasso’s appropriations of musketeers provide a tantalising insight into his personality. Hélène Parmelin recalled how Picasso would play games in front of the canvases with her and her husband, the painter and sculptor Edouard Pignon. Picasso would point to various musketeers and remark ‘With this one you’d better watch out. That one makes fun of us. That one is enormously satisfied. This one is a grave intellectual. And that one, look how sad he is, the poor guy. He must be a painter’ (quoted in Picasso: Tradition and Avant-garde, exh. Cat., Museo del Prado, Madrid, 2006, p. 340). The theme of the musketeer withholds personal qualities of the artist and was a last effort to reclaim a heroic stance in life, to affirm his ability, through skill and wit, and to ultimately remain in control of his fate during the final stage of his long life.