Diana Widmaier Picasso, the granddaughter of Pablo Picasso, sits down with Simon Shaw, Sotheby’s NY Vice Chairman in Global Fine Arts to discuss Picasso’s history and significance in the world today.
This discussion took place during Sotheby’s The Emily Fisher Landau Collection: An Era Defined Evening Auction on 8 November 2023 where Pablo Picasso’s Femme à la montre was sold.
Executed in 1932 at the pinnacle of Picasso’s impassioned affair, Femme à la montre exists as one of the most resolved and complex depictions from this highly charged year. The rapturous period from which Femme à la montre originates has been described by the artist’s biographer John Richardson as Picasso’s annus mirabilis or ‘year of wonders.’ In 1932, Picasso worked at a feverish pace, ceaselessly inspired by his new muse’s presence and the longing felt in her absence. Utterly consumed by his amour fou – the Surrealist notion of an obsessional, vortex-like desire – each work from this period reads like an entry in a diary, documenting the pair’s evolving relationship. Among the artist’s 1932 works, it is the monumental canvases like Femme à la montre, which unapologetically announce Marie-Thérèse’s presence, that are most widely acclaimed for their singular importance in Picasso's oeuvre.
