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PABLO PICASSO | Composition aux formes géometriques (Pipes)
Estimate
800,000 - 1,200,000 USD
bidding is closed
Description
- Pablo Picasso
- Composition aux formes géometriques (Pipes)
- Oil on canvas
- 15 by 18 in.
- 38 by 45.8 cm
- Painted in 1918.
Provenance
Estate of the artist
Paloma Picasso, Paris (the artist's daughter; by descent from the above)
Private Collection, Geneva (and sold: Sotheby's, London, June 26, 1990, lot 47)
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Paloma Picasso, Paris (the artist's daughter; by descent from the above)
Private Collection, Geneva (and sold: Sotheby's, London, June 26, 1990, lot 47)
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Exhibited
Paris, Galerie Claude Bernard, Picasso: Peintures, 1901-1971, 1980, no. 3, illustrated in color in the catalogue
Chicago, Richard Gray Gallery, Picasso's Picassos, 1985, no. 10, illustrated in color in the catalogue (titled Pipe)
Chicago, Richard Gray Gallery, Picasso's Picassos, 1985, no. 10, illustrated in color in the catalogue (titled Pipe)
Literature
Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, Oeuvres de 1917 à 1919, vol. III, Paris, 1949, no. 147, illustrated pl. 52
Josep Palau i Fabre, Picasso: From the Ballets to Drama (1917-1926), Barcelona, 1999, no. 233, illustrated in color p. 93
Josep Palau i Fabre, Picasso: From the Ballets to Drama (1917-1926), Barcelona, 1999, no. 233, illustrated in color p. 93
Condition
Please contact the Impressionist & Modern department at 212-606-7360 for a condition report prepared by a third-party conservator.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.
Catalogue Note
Executed with sublime precision, the present work dates from the seminal year of 1918. Two years earlier, Picasso moved to Montrouge, located on the edge of Paris, where he maintained a studio until relocating to rue de la Boétie in the year of the present work's execution. During the time when he was living and working in Montrouge, his relationship with Olga Khokhlova flourished and he involved himself with the world of the ballet.
Picasso's Cubist still lifes are arguably his most inventive and original artistic manifestations. Stylistically, it is a complex period in his career because he worked in a variety of different manners simultaneously. Painting in various perspectival views simultaneously produced a diversity of volumetric figure studies and flattened still lifes. In these compositions, Picasso experimented with the deconstruction and reconstruction of form and the manipulation of space, nodding to his previous Cubist explorations while venturing into a style influenced by Neoclassical tenets.
The present work is a classic example of Synthetic Cubism, but it is also stylistically conservative. John Richardson suggests that "the development of this last great period of Synthetic Cubism can easily be followed through the Guéridons—still lifes on a pedestal table...which are a recurrent feature... No longer did Picasso feel obligated to investigate the intricate formal and spatial problems that preoccupied him ten years before. Instead he felt free to relax and exploit his cubist discoveries in a decorative manner that delights the eye... Never again did the artist's style recapture the air of magisterial calm that is such a feature of this last great phase of Cubism" (John Richardson, Picasso, An American Tribute, New York, 1962, p. 52).
Commenting on Picasso's "stylistic Don Juanism," Brigitte Léal has observed that even as early as 1901, "Picasso was cheerfully, promiscuously mixing two very different forms of representation in a single work, the academic and the caricatural, for example (caricature being Picasso's antidote to the academic figurative norm). However, Picasso's stylistic flexibility took an unexpected turn during the turbulent period of 1915-20, becoming an exercise in self-liberation. During this period Picasso still worked at two different forms of representation—the other 'art about art'—but still life temporarily replaced caricature as a foil to academicism in his work. Realism applied to figure; Cubism applied to still life" (Brigitte Léal, "Picasso's Stylistic 'Don Juanism': Still Life in the Dialectic between Cubism and Classicism," in Picasso and Things (exhibition catalogue), Cleveland Museum of Modern Art, Cleveland & The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1992, p. 30).
Picasso's Cubist still lifes are arguably his most inventive and original artistic manifestations. Stylistically, it is a complex period in his career because he worked in a variety of different manners simultaneously. Painting in various perspectival views simultaneously produced a diversity of volumetric figure studies and flattened still lifes. In these compositions, Picasso experimented with the deconstruction and reconstruction of form and the manipulation of space, nodding to his previous Cubist explorations while venturing into a style influenced by Neoclassical tenets.
The present work is a classic example of Synthetic Cubism, but it is also stylistically conservative. John Richardson suggests that "the development of this last great period of Synthetic Cubism can easily be followed through the Guéridons—still lifes on a pedestal table...which are a recurrent feature... No longer did Picasso feel obligated to investigate the intricate formal and spatial problems that preoccupied him ten years before. Instead he felt free to relax and exploit his cubist discoveries in a decorative manner that delights the eye... Never again did the artist's style recapture the air of magisterial calm that is such a feature of this last great phase of Cubism" (John Richardson, Picasso, An American Tribute, New York, 1962, p. 52).
Commenting on Picasso's "stylistic Don Juanism," Brigitte Léal has observed that even as early as 1901, "Picasso was cheerfully, promiscuously mixing two very different forms of representation in a single work, the academic and the caricatural, for example (caricature being Picasso's antidote to the academic figurative norm). However, Picasso's stylistic flexibility took an unexpected turn during the turbulent period of 1915-20, becoming an exercise in self-liberation. During this period Picasso still worked at two different forms of representation—the other 'art about art'—but still life temporarily replaced caricature as a foil to academicism in his work. Realism applied to figure; Cubism applied to still life" (Brigitte Léal, "Picasso's Stylistic 'Don Juanism': Still Life in the Dialectic between Cubism and Classicism," in Picasso and Things (exhibition catalogue), Cleveland Museum of Modern Art, Cleveland & The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1992, p. 30).