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Lot Essay
In Femme nue assise III, Pablo Picasso has concentrated huge painterly power into a composition made all the more intense by the intimacy of its jewel-like scale. Measuring just under a foot tall, it is a work crammed with visceral energy that draws the eye to its surface. Whether in the calligraphy-like outlines that form the body of the seated woman, or the swirling impasto that adds such a tactile quality, Femme nue assise III reveals Picasso revelling in the act, substance and concept of painting. A celebration of flesh and sensuality, this picture was painted on 16 February 1959, soon after Picasso’s acquisition of the vast Château de Vauvenargues, and the intimate scale of Femme nue assise III serves as a marked counterpoint to the grandeur of the castle. To some degree, it offers a romantic vision, an exploration of an idealised, sensualised life with his wife Jacqueline, who in recent years had become his muse and favourite subject.
In tackling the subject of the nude woman, Picasso was not simply celebrating his marital status: he was also invoking the history of art. The Château de Vauvenargues is located at the bottom of Mont Sainte Victoire, the mountain immortalised in the paintings of Paul Cezanne. This direct link to Picasso’s artistic hero is evident in the pose and pared-back composition of Femme nue assise III. This recalls Cezanne’s influential paintings of bathers, one of which Picasso owned. Cezanne’s figures in turn had helped usher in Picasso’s Cubism at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Picasso’s self-aware immersion in the history of art had been reinforced when he had his collection of pictures taken to his new home, unpacking many which had been in storage for years. This renewed acquaintance with paintings by artists such as the Le Nain brothers, Gustave Courbet and of course Cezanne himself, ushered in a new, retrospective dimension to Picasso’s pictures of the period.
The pose in Femme nue assise III echoes both Cezanne’s bathers and those in Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres’ Le bain turc in Musée du Louvre, Paris. Crucially, the raised arms also recall one of the figures in Picasso’s own Les demoiselles d’Avignon, his proto-Cubist masterpiece in The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Indeed, with its planar forms, the body shown in Femme nue assise III recalls the images of bathers, dryads and other female figures that dated from the dawn of Picasso’s iconic development of Cubism. This was a position to which he would return again and again. Pictures by Picasso from across the decades show him exploring seated nudes, their legs crossed and arms raised. In a photograph showing the interior of Picasso’s home at the Villa La Californie in the outskirts of Cannes, Femme nue assise III is poised near a larger composition from the same year exploring the same theme, but to different effect.
Picasso was looking at, and responding to, his own work—his own artistic legacy—as well as those of his heroes and predecessors. This was a period of international fame and recognition—he had acquired the Château to escape the prying eyes of a fascinated public. At the same time, Picasso was all too aware of developments in contemporary art. As early as 1950, the New York dealer Sam Kootz had shown a work by Picasso alongside those of artists such as Robert Motherwell and Willem de Kooning in Black or White: Paintings by European and American Artists. Looking at Femme nue assise III, an awareness of the vigour of the Abstract Expressionists appears evident, however much the composition is tethered in the realm of the figurative. One might wonder if, in creating Femme nue assise III, Picasso knowingly invoked the energy of De Kooning’s paintings of women from earlier in the decade.
In tackling the subject of the nude woman, Picasso was not simply celebrating his marital status: he was also invoking the history of art. The Château de Vauvenargues is located at the bottom of Mont Sainte Victoire, the mountain immortalised in the paintings of Paul Cezanne. This direct link to Picasso’s artistic hero is evident in the pose and pared-back composition of Femme nue assise III. This recalls Cezanne’s influential paintings of bathers, one of which Picasso owned. Cezanne’s figures in turn had helped usher in Picasso’s Cubism at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Picasso’s self-aware immersion in the history of art had been reinforced when he had his collection of pictures taken to his new home, unpacking many which had been in storage for years. This renewed acquaintance with paintings by artists such as the Le Nain brothers, Gustave Courbet and of course Cezanne himself, ushered in a new, retrospective dimension to Picasso’s pictures of the period.
The pose in Femme nue assise III echoes both Cezanne’s bathers and those in Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres’ Le bain turc in Musée du Louvre, Paris. Crucially, the raised arms also recall one of the figures in Picasso’s own Les demoiselles d’Avignon, his proto-Cubist masterpiece in The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Indeed, with its planar forms, the body shown in Femme nue assise III recalls the images of bathers, dryads and other female figures that dated from the dawn of Picasso’s iconic development of Cubism. This was a position to which he would return again and again. Pictures by Picasso from across the decades show him exploring seated nudes, their legs crossed and arms raised. In a photograph showing the interior of Picasso’s home at the Villa La Californie in the outskirts of Cannes, Femme nue assise III is poised near a larger composition from the same year exploring the same theme, but to different effect.
Picasso was looking at, and responding to, his own work—his own artistic legacy—as well as those of his heroes and predecessors. This was a period of international fame and recognition—he had acquired the Château to escape the prying eyes of a fascinated public. At the same time, Picasso was all too aware of developments in contemporary art. As early as 1950, the New York dealer Sam Kootz had shown a work by Picasso alongside those of artists such as Robert Motherwell and Willem de Kooning in Black or White: Paintings by European and American Artists. Looking at Femme nue assise III, an awareness of the vigour of the Abstract Expressionists appears evident, however much the composition is tethered in the realm of the figurative. One might wonder if, in creating Femme nue assise III, Picasso knowingly invoked the energy of De Kooning’s paintings of women from earlier in the decade.