巴布羅.畢加索

Jacqueline Picasso, Paris & Mougins (the artist's wife)
Landau Fine Arts, Montreal (acquired from the above)
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Avignon, Palais des Papes, Exposition Picasso 1970-1972: 201 Peintures, 1973, no. 167
Montreal, Montreal Museum of Arts, Pablo Picasso, Meeting in Montreal, 1985, no. 78, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Rafael Alberti, Picasso: Le rayon ininterrompu, Paris, 1974, no. 200
Francis Ponge, Pierre Descargues & Edward Quinn, Picasso de  Draeger, Paris, 1974, illustrated in colour p. 259
Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso: Œuvres et 1971 à 1972. Paris, 1978, vol. 33, no. 302, illustrated pl. 106
Late Picasso (exhibition catalogue), Tate Gallery, London, 1988, illustrated in colour in a photograph p. 46
The Picasso Project (ed.), Picasso's Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings & Sculpture - The Final Years, 1970-1973, San Francisco, 1994, no. 72-036, illustrated p. 278
Picasso. Malen gegen die Zeit (exhibition catalogue), Albertina, Vienna, 2006, illustrated in colour in a photograph p. 24
Picasso. Mousqueteros (exhibition catalogue), Gagosian Gallery, New York, 2009, illustrated in a photograph on the dustjacket; illustrated in a photograph p. 165; illustrated in colour in a photograph p. 266

The canvas is unlined and there is no evidence of retouching under ultra-violet light. This work is in excellent original condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration, although the pinks are more subtle and less purple in the original.
"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."

Homme assis, is a remarkable example of Picasso's mature style; brimming with painterly verve and stylish invention. The artist's astonishing capacity for handling paint is wonderfully present in Homme assis. Lustrous passages of colour cover the whole canvas endowing the figure with a startlingly vivid presence. Throughout his œuvre, Picasso's images of the male figure embody masculine power, and are rendered with a bravuric intensity . 'I have less and less time and I have more and more to say' commented Picasso in his last decade (quoted in Klaus Gallwitz, Picasso Laureatus, Lausanne & Paris, 1971, p. 166), and the freedom and spontaneity of his mature work, together with the recourse to archetypal figures and symbols is visual evidence of this. The seemingly limitless energy that characterises do much of his work is extant in this final burst of creativity, as well as a conscious decision to allow himself total liberty with both style and subject matter (fig. 1). Having gone through so many phases of stylistic and technical experimentation, Picasso now pared down his style in order to paint monumental works in quick, spontaneous brushstrokes. Rather than ponder the details of human anatomy and perspective, the artist isolated those elements of his subject that fascinated and preoccupied him, and depicted them with an extraordinary sense of wit entirely of his own.

In Picasso's late paintings the male subject: 'always plays a part, or wears a disguise: as a painter at work or as a musketeer.  One last new figure appears in Picasso's iconography in 1966, and dominates the period to the point of becoming its emblem: this is a nobleman of the 'Siglo de Oro', half Spanish, half Dutch, gaudily dressed, sporting a ruff, a cloak, boots and a big plumed hat. "It happened when Picasso started to study Rembrandt", said Jacqueline to André Malraux. Other sources have been mentioned, but whether they come from Rembrandt, from Velázquez, from Shakespeare, from Piero Crommelynck's goatee beard, or from that of Picasso's father, all these musketeers are men in disguise, romantic lovers, soldiers who are arrogant, virile, vain and ultimately absurd, for all their panache. Costumed, armed, helmeted, man is always seen in action; and the musketeer sometimes takes up a brush and becomes the painter' (Marie-Laure Bernadac in op. cit., Tate Gallery, London, 1988, p. 81). The very characters of his male figures were the subject of Picasso and his friends' conversations. His admiration for his predecessors manifested itself in many ways, even to the extent that Picasso assumed the mantle of the meta-painter: 'Domenico Theotocopulos van Rijn da Silva', an amalgam of El Greco, Rembrandt and Velázquez and Picasso is recorded to have signed a painting with this pseudonym.

In reference to the present work, Louise d'Argencourt writes: 'The contemplative character of Picasso's last works – expressed in part in the tranquil poses of his seated figures, the importance given to their heads, and the absence in them of all agitation – is often balanced by a spirited execution that makes use of many painterly effects' (Louise d'Argencourt in op. cit., Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, 1985, p. 284). These late portraits represent a psychological projection of the artist's complex and multifaceted identity, illustrating the unruly amalgam of influences and contrary personas that made up the mental backdrop of this protean artist. The represented psychological profiles of his subjects are as penetrating as those of the Dutch paintings he drew inspiration from (fig. 2). As Simonetta Fraquelli comments: 'His capacity for emotional depth and painterly freedom in his late painting, together with his wide-ranging engagement with the imagery of the great paintings of the past, was to have a lasting influence on the development of neo-expressionist art from the early 1980s onwards' (S. Fraquelli, 'Looking at the Past to Defy the Present: Picasso's Painting 1946-1973', in Picasso: Challenging the Past (exhibition catalogue), National Gallery, London, 2009, p. 146).

The present work was included in the second of two landmark exhibitions staged at the Palais des Papes in Avignon (fig. 4). In October 1969 Yvonne and Christian Zervos visited Picasso at Mougins and discussed the possibility of an exhibition that would focus upon one year of the artist's artistic output. The resulting show, which opened in May 1970, was a revelation. The exhibition managed to convey the infinite variety of Picasso's art and the monumental environment of the medieval palace highlighted the momentous sense of occasion. The success of the first show led Picasso to select a group of 201 paintings from the last two years himself. It was unveiled at the Palais des Papes in May 1973, the month after Picasso had died in his ninety-second year. It was a fitting tribute to one of the most outstanding painters of the 20th Century and his extraordinary legacy.

Fig. 1, Pablo Picasso, Mousquetaire á l'épée II, 1972, oil on canvas, Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest

Fig. 2, Frans Hals, The Laughing Cavalier, 1624, oil on canvas, The Wallace Collection, London

Fig. 3, Picasso in Cannes, 1960. Photograph by André Villiers

Fig. 4, The present work in Pablo Picasso, 1970-72, Palais des Papes, Avignon, 1973