Pablo Picasso

Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris
Galleria Internazionale, Milan
Davlyn Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owners May 21, 1981

Tokyo, Seibu Museum, Picasso, 1980, no. 26

"After 1963, the rich and varied iconography of the period since 1953, which drew with such relish on the imagery of the past, took second place, in painting, to the issue of pictorial form... In painting there were no more direct illusions to the art of the past and no more compositions involving multiple figures.  Picasso now chose to work with isolated figures, archetypes and concentrated on the essential: the nude, the couple, man in diguise or stripped bare:  it was his way of dealing with the subjects of women, love and the human comedy.  After isolating the painter in a series of portraits, it was logical that Picasso should now paint the model alone" (Tate Gallery, Late Picasso, Paintings, Sculpture, Drawiings, Prints, 1953-1972. (exhibition catalogue), London, 1988, p. 78)

In 1963 Picasso took up this theme in an extensive series of pantings, prints and drawings that would occupy him for the rest of his life:  The Artist and the Model.  While the present work does not portray the model, the features of the face are close to those of the artist Picasso depicted at this time.  The face is loosely related to his own in his youth- the round head, large eyes and bushy eyebrows- but the head sports a shock of which Picasso no longer has. Gert Schiff noted that these images are not autobiographical, rather "[Picasso] used The Artist and his model as a metaphor for the conceptual nature of his art, for the transformation of the thing seen into a sign, for the paradoxical relationship between artistic and pragmatic truth." (Gert Schiff, Picasso, The Last Years, 1963-1973, New York, 1983, p.17)

Pablo Picasso, Self Portrait, Paris, Bateau-Lavoir (1908) Picasso Archives, Musee Picasso