Pablo Picasso

Alexandre Iolas Gallery, New York

Madame L.S. Schlumberger, Houston and Paris

Acquired from the above in 1954

Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, oeuvres de 1943 et 1944, vol. 13, Paris, 1962, no. 284, illustrated p. 137

The Picasso Project, Picasso's Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings and Sculpture. Nazi Occupation, 1940-1944, San Francisco, 1999, no. 44-104, illustrated p. 355

Picasso executed the present work in 1944, while he was living in Paris during World War II. Throughout this period the still-life was one of his key vehicles of expression, and one which he had not explored so thoroughly since his days as a Cubist. His motivations for painting this subject, however, were markedly different in the 1940s, as the still-life now reflected his solitary experience of living in occupied Paris. Picasso was deeply disturbed by these troubled times and remained reclusive in his studio, choosing to paint compositions that did not refer directly to the war. The present work represents the simple pleasures that helped to distract him from the otherwise bleak experience of daily life. Painting the objects in his studio, particularly a lush basket of fruit or ripe vegetables, was indeed a peaceful endeavour, but also presented a challenge of bringing new life to an age-old theme. Here Picasso paints an assemblage of objects that comment on the nature of existence in occupied Paris. A few radishes and a piece of fruit had become luxuries and pleasures not to be taken for granted. Moreover, like Cézanne, Picasso was able to disrid their rhythms, forms and colors to create a visual experience that offered a respite from a world ravaged by violence and war.

Although seemingly innocuous subjects, these still-lifes are, in fact, rich with meaning, and their simplicity serves as a direct contrast to the events of the age in which they were painted. Frances Morris writes of the profound symbolism behind these compositions: "...above all it was the still-life genre that Picasso developed into a tool capable of evoking the most complex blend of pathos and defiance, of despair to hope, balancing personal and universal experience in an expression of extraordinary emotional power. The hardships of daily life, the fragility of human existence and the threat of death are themes that haunt Picasso's still-life paintings of the war and Liberation periods" (Frances Morris, Paris Post War, Art and Existentialism 1945-1955 (exhibition catalogue), Tate Gallery, London, 1993, p. 155).