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拍品专文
Picasso remained in his studio at 7 rue des Grands-Augustins in Paris from 1940 to 1944, throughout the German Occupation of France during World War II. As Picasso later recalled, “It was not a time for the creative man to fail, to shrink, to stop working…there was nothing else to do but work seriously and devotedly, struggle for food, see friends quietly, and look forward to freedom” (quoted in M. McCully, ed., A Picasso Anthology: Documents, Criticism, Reminiscences, Princeton, 1981, p. 224). Though the artist completed relatively few large-scale paintings and sculptures during this difficult period, he continued make hundreds of drawings on paper—including the present work, Tête de femme, dated 31 March 1943.
Most of the female figures in Picasso's work of the late 1930s and early 1940s were inspired by the likeness of his lover, the Surrealist photographer Dora Maar. The nine-year relationship between the painter and photographer was marked by volatility and conflict—but also profound intellectual and artistic exchange. Picasso frequently rendered her angular features in geometric form and adorned her with large stylish hats, which were her sartorial signature; the resulting paintings and drawings are among his most iconic. As Brigitte Léal observed, "The name Dora Maar, for most true enthusiasts of Picasso's work, conjures up one of the greatest moments of his creative efforts" (Picasso and Portraiture, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1996, p. 385). In the summer of 1943, however, sixty-two-year-old Picasso began an affair with the twenty-two-year-old aspiring painter Françoise Gilot; he ceased to paint or draw Maar thereafter.
In Tête de femme, Picasso resurrected the spare lines of his Classical period in the 1920s. Here, however, he rendered the female body in the Cubist vocabulary of triangles, circles and irregular polygons. This sharp, linear visual language was, for Picasso, the most accurate way to depict Maar, capturing the fraught nature of their romantic entanglement; He later recalled, "For years I’ve painted her in tortured forms, not through sadism, and not with pleasure, either; just obeying a vision that forced itself on me. It was the deep reality, not the superficial one" (quoted in F. Gilot and C. Lake, Life with Picasso, New York, 1964, p. 122).
Most of the female figures in Picasso's work of the late 1930s and early 1940s were inspired by the likeness of his lover, the Surrealist photographer Dora Maar. The nine-year relationship between the painter and photographer was marked by volatility and conflict—but also profound intellectual and artistic exchange. Picasso frequently rendered her angular features in geometric form and adorned her with large stylish hats, which were her sartorial signature; the resulting paintings and drawings are among his most iconic. As Brigitte Léal observed, "The name Dora Maar, for most true enthusiasts of Picasso's work, conjures up one of the greatest moments of his creative efforts" (Picasso and Portraiture, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1996, p. 385). In the summer of 1943, however, sixty-two-year-old Picasso began an affair with the twenty-two-year-old aspiring painter Françoise Gilot; he ceased to paint or draw Maar thereafter.
In Tête de femme, Picasso resurrected the spare lines of his Classical period in the 1920s. Here, however, he rendered the female body in the Cubist vocabulary of triangles, circles and irregular polygons. This sharp, linear visual language was, for Picasso, the most accurate way to depict Maar, capturing the fraught nature of their romantic entanglement; He later recalled, "For years I’ve painted her in tortured forms, not through sadism, and not with pleasure, either; just obeying a vision that forced itself on me. It was the deep reality, not the superficial one" (quoted in F. Gilot and C. Lake, Life with Picasso, New York, 1964, p. 122).