Pablo PICASSO
(Malaga 1881 - Mougins 1973)
Nude with a Bunch of Grapes (Nu à la grappe de raisin)
Ballpoint pen on paper; a page from a sketchbook.
Dated and numbered 31.5.70. III in black ink and signed Picasso in pencil at the upper right.
296 x 221 mm. (11 5/8 x 8 3/4 in.) [sight]
307 x 230 mm. (12 1/8 x 9 in.) [sheet]
Dated and numbered 31.5.70. III in black ink and signed Picasso in pencil at the upper right.
296 x 221 mm. (11 5/8 x 8 3/4 in.) [sight]
307 x 230 mm. (12 1/8 x 9 in.) [sheet]
During the summer months of 1970, Picasso created a substantial number of drawings, executed in pencil, chalk, ink, gouache or coloured crayons. The following year, nearly two hundred drawings – representing almost all of the drawings produced by artist over a period of thirteen months between December 1969 and January 1971, and including the present sheet – were exhibited at the Galerie Louis Leiris in Paris. Drawn on Sunday, the 31st of May 1970, this large sheet was the third of seven drawings of female nudes produced in one sketchbook on that day. Five of the drawings depicted single seated or reclining nudes, while one added a second female nude and the other included a seated male figure.
As one scholar has written, ‘Picasso is boldly devotional and adoring of women in the drawings of his last years…Part sad remembrance of things past, part idolatrous preoccupation with the body of his young wife, many of the drawings have the character of devotional images…The drawings restore a sense of well-being and vigor with the promise of an Arcadian restoration of youthfulness and vitality.’
It has further been noted of Picasso that his late drawings ‘offer a richness of ideas and iconography for which no complete lexicon is likely to exist…The unabashedly first-person, diarylike entries, compulsively dated and frequently serialized, probably once held together more tightly, like a vast confessional epic novel. We are at a disadvantage, left to consider them now as individual sheets without the benefit of viewing the drawings in their original sequences as an organic whole.’
As one scholar has written, ‘Picasso is boldly devotional and adoring of women in the drawings of his last years…Part sad remembrance of things past, part idolatrous preoccupation with the body of his young wife, many of the drawings have the character of devotional images…The drawings restore a sense of well-being and vigor with the promise of an Arcadian restoration of youthfulness and vitality.’
It has further been noted of Picasso that his late drawings ‘offer a richness of ideas and iconography for which no complete lexicon is likely to exist…The unabashedly first-person, diarylike entries, compulsively dated and frequently serialized, probably once held together more tightly, like a vast confessional epic novel. We are at a disadvantage, left to consider them now as individual sheets without the benefit of viewing the drawings in their original sequences as an organic whole.’
‘I do not know if I am a great painter, but I am a great draughtsman.’ (Picasso to Max Jacob).
Provenance
Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris
Berggruen & Cie., Paris
Acquired from them by a private collector in December 1972
Bernard Danenberg Galleries, New York
Howard and Muriel Weingrow, Old Westbury, New York
Anonymous sale, New York, Christie’s, 5 May 2010, lot 205
Achim Moeller Fine Art, New York
Private collection.
Berggruen & Cie., Paris
Acquired from them by a private collector in December 1972
Bernard Danenberg Galleries, New York
Howard and Muriel Weingrow, Old Westbury, New York
Anonymous sale, New York, Christie’s, 5 May 2010, lot 205
Achim Moeller Fine Art, New York
Private collection.
Literature
Paris, Galerie Louise Leiris, Picasso: Dessins en noir et en couleurs 15 décembre 1969 - 12 janvier 1971, exhibition catalogue, 1971, p.28, no.29; Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, Vol.XXXII: Oeuvres de 1970, Paris, 1977, pl.40, no.94; The Picasso Project. Picasso’s Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings and Sculpture: A Comprehensive Illustrated Catalogue 1885-1973. The Final Years – 1970-1973, San Francisco, 2004, p.40, no.70-124.
Exhibition
Paris, Galerie Louise Leiris, Picasso: Dessins en noir et en couleurs, 15 décembre 1969 - 12 janvier 1971, April-June 1971, no.29; Roslyn Harbor, Nassau County Museum of Art, Picasso, 2005; Roslyn Harbor, Nassau County Museum of Art, Picasso and The School of Paris, 2006-2007.
