1964
In 1964, Picasso, age 83, moved to Notre-Dame-de-Vie in the south of France with his second wife Jacqueline Roque and began a series of works using an unyieldingly powerful line, as seen in the drawing 'Trois Nus', 1964.
'Trois Nus' is a strong graphic image exploring one of the most enduring themes within Picasso's oeuvre, the nude. The composition is effortlessly balanced with a seated central figure framed by a crouching and standing nude on either side. The vibrant colours Picasso used in this sensual drawing strike a delicate balance between the art-historical significance and the raw sensuality of his nudes. In this work he takes the female figure back to something more timeless, enduring and primordial. As Susan Galassi notes the female nude was for Picasso, 'the very essence of art... It's principle and its force, the mysterious armature that prevents its decomposition and dissolution. She is equated with the originating impulse of art, eros, inspiration, and generativity, and is the link between generations.'
This drawing also presents us with the vestige of a life committed to exploring themes related to the nature of looking. The central figure in 'Trois Nus' references that of the artist, although her gesture is hidden from us, it appears as though she holds a canvas and is sketching out a scene. The curvaceous figures to either side, marked out with strong lines and colours of unprecedented vividness also held great personal significance to Picasso, as they are understood to be thinly veiled references to his wife, Jacqueline. As was the case for many of the female figures Picasso depicted at the end of his career, the women in this composition with their full dark hair and large eyes bear a striking resemblance to his wife. Although Picasso never had her pose for him in his studio, her image dominated the artist's pictures in the last decades of his life.
Estrella de Diego describes the entrance of Jacqueline into the life and work of the artist: 'Jacqueline appeared at a perfect moment in the life of Picasso, an older man who was beginning to be overwhelmed by many things, from his family life to his success, as [Roland] Penrose explained. And as a result of a casual encounter, which recalls that between Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal, a shop assistant before she posed for the English artist, Jacqueline came to embody – from the abstract to the concrete, from portraits to representations of the essence of woman – each and every one of the characters Picasso needed, as he had always done in the past, to activate the pictorial formulae that corresponded to his enduring obsessions, even including a certain unfashionable orientalism. And she ended up being, suddenly, the model, that recurrent character in Picasso's painting ever since Les Demoiselles d'Avignon; bodies on the stage... where the gaze of the voyeur can finally be at ease: everything is there, right there.'
A unique work, graphite and crayon on paper, 1964, signed and dated lower right: '26.5.64 Picasso III', 52 x 74 cm. (20 1⁄2 x 29 1⁄4 in.). This work is accompanied by a certificate kindly issued by Claude Ruiz-Picasso dated 28 November 2013.
'Trois Nus' is a strong graphic image exploring one of the most enduring themes within Picasso's oeuvre, the nude. The composition is effortlessly balanced with a seated central figure framed by a crouching and standing nude on either side. The vibrant colours Picasso used in this sensual drawing strike a delicate balance between the art-historical significance and the raw sensuality of his nudes. In this work he takes the female figure back to something more timeless, enduring and primordial. As Susan Galassi notes the female nude was for Picasso, 'the very essence of art... It's principle and its force, the mysterious armature that prevents its decomposition and dissolution. She is equated with the originating impulse of art, eros, inspiration, and generativity, and is the link between generations.'
This drawing also presents us with the vestige of a life committed to exploring themes related to the nature of looking. The central figure in 'Trois Nus' references that of the artist, although her gesture is hidden from us, it appears as though she holds a canvas and is sketching out a scene. The curvaceous figures to either side, marked out with strong lines and colours of unprecedented vividness also held great personal significance to Picasso, as they are understood to be thinly veiled references to his wife, Jacqueline. As was the case for many of the female figures Picasso depicted at the end of his career, the women in this composition with their full dark hair and large eyes bear a striking resemblance to his wife. Although Picasso never had her pose for him in his studio, her image dominated the artist's pictures in the last decades of his life.
Estrella de Diego describes the entrance of Jacqueline into the life and work of the artist: 'Jacqueline appeared at a perfect moment in the life of Picasso, an older man who was beginning to be overwhelmed by many things, from his family life to his success, as [Roland] Penrose explained. And as a result of a casual encounter, which recalls that between Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal, a shop assistant before she posed for the English artist, Jacqueline came to embody – from the abstract to the concrete, from portraits to representations of the essence of woman – each and every one of the characters Picasso needed, as he had always done in the past, to activate the pictorial formulae that corresponded to his enduring obsessions, even including a certain unfashionable orientalism. And she ended up being, suddenly, the model, that recurrent character in Picasso's painting ever since Les Demoiselles d'Avignon; bodies on the stage... where the gaze of the voyeur can finally be at ease: everything is there, right there.'
A unique work, graphite and crayon on paper, 1964, signed and dated lower right: '26.5.64 Picasso III', 52 x 74 cm. (20 1⁄2 x 29 1⁄4 in.). This work is accompanied by a certificate kindly issued by Claude Ruiz-Picasso dated 28 November 2013.
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