Pablo Picasso
Arguably the greatest artist of the 20th Century, Pablo Picasso’s artistic output continued right up until his death in 1973. The late period of Picasso’s work, perhaps more than any other, is characterised by a certain degree of stability, both in his studio environment and in his personal relationships. This combination of factors resulted in a significant body of work whose importance has been reassessed in recent years, including an in depth exhibition “Picasso: The Last Years 1963-1973” at The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1984.
This late work, unlike the somewhat daunting masterpieces of his earlier years, has had an enormous influence on painters working in the last quarter of the 20th Century - painters such as Julian Schnabel, Georg Baselitz, Jasper Johns and Francesco Clemente.
Late Picasso has it’s own uncompromising strengths and expression and reinforces Picasso’s rightful title as the greatest and most influential artist of the 20th Century.
Femme dans l’atelier, 1956
In the summer of 1955, Picasso purchased La Californie - an elaborate 19th Century ‘Belle Epoque’ villa overlooking the bay at Cannes in France. Here he established his studio surrounded by lush tropical vegetation with views towards Golfe-Juan and Antibes. It was this that inspired a series of paintings on the subject of the studio that Picasso himself called ‘interior landscapes’. As much as these paintings were about the studio environment, it’s painter and model, they were also about the act of painting itself - paintings within paintings. He painted numerous canvases on the subject, consisting of the easily recognisable interior and furnishings, such as the simplified art deco window and the studio’s cane rocking chair.
Although this work has an unnamed woman as the subject, it was Jacqueline Hutin Roque, who was to become his wife in 1961, that featured prominently as his muse in works of this period. Picasso, unlike many painters, disliked the traditional method of using a studio model, preferring instead to paint those close to him. This series of works depicting his muse are rarely portraits, rather, they are images of the woman he loves.
In the centre of the composition an empty canvas rests on an easel. This recurring motif has become further simplified to a mere rectangle and suggestions of canvas tacks, resulting in this pared down shape. The empty canvas has an art historical significance, being the traditional motif of a picture within a picture - preeminantly employed by Diego Velasquez in “The Maids of Honor (Las Meninas)”, (1656) - a painting greatly admired and emulated by Picasso in his “Las Meninas, after Velazquez” series of works of 1957. An earlier work, “Jacqueline in the Studio” (2-8th April, 1956) portrays Jacqueline against a blank white canvas creating ambiguous relationships for the viewer. Is the figure of Jacqueline painted on the canvas or is she a prop in the studio?
In this work, “Femme dans l’atelier”, the figure of Jacqueline is seated in the studio’s cane rocking chair, a motif that in itself warranted a number of studies. Her face and her legs are in profile, while her torso twists to give the spectator a frontal view. This is a continuation of Picasso’s cubist technique of portraying three dimensional figures and objects by showing all angles simultaneously in a two dimensional medium - yet the paint is applied in an increasingly expressionistic manner.
References to the works of Henri Matisse with their studio settings and window views were actively engaged by Picasso. Matisse was a close friend and contemporary of Picasso’s and his death in 1954 came as a blow. This work painted two years after the death of Matisse, shows Picasso ‘s admiration for the work of his long term rival and friend.
L’artiste et son modele, 1964
Picasso began depicting the artist and model as a subject as early as 1914, the subject manifesting itself on and off throughout his career. In 1963 and 1964 he returned to this with a vengeance, when for these two years he painted little else.
In L’artiste et son modele the free and expressive technique used by Picasso enables him to capture a specific moment. As in other works in this series, the features of both figures are conveyed through blocks of colour and a sketchy black outline. This loose manner of painting equates with Picasso’s passion for his subject matter. It is in this series of artist and model paintings, that Picasso’s visual vocabulary is at it’s most free. “A dot for the breast, a line for the artist, five spots of paint for the foot, a few pink and green lines - that’s enough isn’t it? what more need I do? What can I add to that? It’s all been said” (Marie-Laure Bernadac, Late Picasso: Paintings, sculptures, drawing, prints 1953-1972, Tate Gallery, 1988, p. 85) The work also conforms to the generally horizontal format by placing the artist firmly on one half of the canvas and the model on the other.
However when the canvas becomes vertical the subjects are pushed much closer together as in the later Femme nue avec tete d’homme. Here Picasso shifts the artist-model relationships to something more intimate and the sexuality that underlies many of these works becomes a much greater reality. The fact that the model is his wife Jacqueline has made it easier to portray this intimacy. It is in this series of artist and model paintings that we see Picasso explore all the facets of his relationship with Jacqueline. Free from the restrictions of his early cubist technique he is able to create some of the most expressive and passionate works of his career.
Femme nue avec tete d’homme, 1967
From 1963 until his death, Picasso increasingly reduced his compositions to the bare essentials, and minimised his subject matter. The effect heightens the emotional intensity, by focusing primarily on the male / female relationship and providing a more fundamental pairing than that of the artist and his model.
The woman, Jacqueline, is portrayed as a classic Picasso nude, crouched on large feet with arms lifted to reveal a clear view of her breasts. Yet she is reduced to her basic contours. As in the earlier artist and model series, symbols has been developed to signify body parts - dark outlines for her limbs, sweeping brushstrokes for her breasts and circles for toes. “Things have got to be ‘named’.......I want to ‘say’ the nude; I want to ‘say’ breast, to ‘say’ foot, to ‘say’ hand, belly - find a way to ‘say’ it and that’s enough” (ibid. p.85) Again, the white of the canvas is revealed to become part of the figure’s compositional makeup.
The male is even further simplified, his presence reduced to that of the glimpsed voyeur. Stylistically this is reminiscent of figures in works such as “Musketeer (Domenico Theotocopulos van Riyn da Silva)”, (28 March 1967) - the long curls, twirled moustache and goatee, with the bare suggestion of a ruffle at his neck provoking such a comparison - or, perhaps it is Picasso himself, but portrayed in the manner of artist Rembrandt. Rembrandt’s “Rembrandt and Saskia” (c. 1635) depicts a similar self-portrait of the artist with his wife. Although not similar stylistically, elements in common include the intimate relationship between the two subjects, their underlying sexual tension and compositional resemblances. Whatever the source of the male figure in this work, he is created within an economy of gesture that signifies the work of a true master.
During the period 1963-1973, Picasso was considered an historical artist rather than a practising contemporary. Ironically, it is only in retrospect, that his work of this period has come to be recognised as important in itself. “Quite free from the sovereign thrift and the flawless overall control of earlier Picasso, the work went it’s own way. It had it’s own weight, it’s own momentum and it’s own ambitions. It had a variety that was quite simply prodigious.” (John Russell, “Picasso: The Last Decade of a Glorious Career”, The New York Times Magazine, February 26 1984, p. 33)
