巴布羅·畢加索

pen, brush, India ink and gray wash on paper laid down on board, signed and dated 'Picasso 25. Novembre. XXXII' (lower right)

Hugh Willoughby, London & Hove (acquired by 1934)
Gérald Cramer, Geneva (acquired in 1957)
O'Hana Gallery, London
Private Collection
Sale: Christie's, New York, 9th November 1999, lot 449
Purchased at the above sale by the late owner

London, Tate Gallery & Cheltenham, Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum, Drawings and Paintings by Picasso, from the Collection of Mr Hugh Willoughby, 1934
Cheltenham, Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum, 1937
Hove, Furze Croft, 1942
London, Eugene Slatter Gallery, Picasso Loan Exhibition, Collection of Hugh Willoughby, Esq., 1945, no. 12 (titled Baigneuses au bord de la mer)
Paris, Artcurial, L'Aventure surréaliste autour d'André Breton, 1986, illustrated in the catalogue
Paris, Artcurial, La Méditerranée, sources et formes du XXème siècle, 1988, illustrated in the catalogue
Paris, Artcurial, Papiers de peintres - papiers de sculpteurs, 1991
Bielefeld, Kunsthalle, Picassos Surrealismus, Werke 1925-1937, 1991, no. 45, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Robert Melville, Picasso: Master of the Phantom, Oxford, 1939, illustrated pl. VI
Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, œuvres de 1932 à 1937, Paris, 1957, vol. 8, no. 59, illustrated pl. 26
Annick Ehrenström, Gérald Cramer, un éditeur génèvois au fil de ses archives de 1942 à 1986, Geneva, 1988, illustrated p. 105
The Picasso Project, Picasso's Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings and Sculpture. Surrealism, 1930-1936, San Francisco, 1997, no. 32-159, illustrated p. 146
Anne Strathie & Sophia Wilson, Hugh Willoughby - The Man Who Loved Picassos, 2009, illustrated in a photograph on the cover; illustrated in photographs pp. 3, 22, 35 & 37

Executed on cream wove paper, not laid down, glued to the mount at the top two corners, floating in the mount. This work is in excellent original condition. Colours: In comparison with the printed catalogue illustration, the paper has a less yellow tonality 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."

Femmes jouant au bord de la mer is an exceptional example of Picasso’s peerless draughtsmanship and one of a series of crucially important works he produced during 1932 which were inspired by his affair with Marie-Thérèse Walter. Discussing these works, Ina Conzen writes: ‘From 1932 onwards the bathers theme gets dramatically intensified and changes the narrative in a whole number of significant - still surrealist in context – images. Through this process Picasso found his most captivating figurative way of expressing pain. Flat, symbolic compositions, which the artist used in parallel with other structural possibilities, gives a lot of these works their elementary forcefulness’ (I. Conzen, Picasso Badende (exhibition catalogue), Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, 2005, p. 106, translated from German). The origins of Femmes jouant sur la plage are found in the summers Picasso spent at Cannes and Dinard. John Richardson described how in July 1928: ‘Whenever possible, Picasso would escape from his wife’s sulks and the stifling atmosphere of their ugly rented house (the Villa des Roches in the Saint-Enogat quarter of Dinard) and make for the Plage de l’Ecluse in another part of the town. Marie-Thérèse would be playing ball with some children from her holiday home – a scene Picasso would repeatedly portray on the spot over the next few weeks, and from memory laced with fantasy over the next few years’ (J. Richardson, ‘Picasso and Marie-Thérèse Walter’, in Through the Eye of Picasso 1928-1934 (exhibition catalogue), William Beadleston Gallery, New York, 1985).

The first owner of the present work was Hugh Willoughby (1884-1952), an Englishman who spent over twenty years living in Paris between 1911 and 1934. Willoughby was the first significant collector of Picasso’s work in Britain, acquiring a number of important oil paintings and drawings. In November 1934 his collection, including the present work, was displayed at the Tate Gallery before travelling to Cheltenham in January 1935. Over the next few decades Willoughby continued to promote Picasso’s work throughout England, including one particular exhibition which he held in 1942 at his flat in Furze Croft, Hove, and which comprised of works from his own and his friends’ collections. The star of the show was Roland Penrose’s 1937 masterpiece La femme qui pleure, now in the Tate collection, which was escorted to Sussex by Lucian Freud who took it there on the train.