Pablo Picasso

In February and March 1960 Picasso executed a series of paintings on the subject of pigeons, of which the present work is one of the largest. More than any other animal depicted by Picasso, pigeons and doves convey a spirit of harmony with nature. Whilst he used images of bulls and roosters to suggest eroticism and sexual power, pigeons and doves served as symbols of peace and purity. Although Picasso depicted pigeons from the earliest stages of his career, they became the special focus of his attention in the late 1950s, when he spent most of his time at the villa La Californie in the south of France. David Douglas Duncan, who lived with Picasso and Jacqueline during this period, photographing the artist’s collection, observed him at work:

‘When Picasso stands painting in La Californie the doors of his top floor studio are generally thrown open, both to catch the night breeze from the Mediterranean just beyond his garden and so that he can visit with the pigeons who live on his balcony. They are friends. Many often wander into his room hoping to be fed from the sack of grain kept in the corner next to his colors. As he works, seeing the lights of Cannes go slowly out and the birds settle down for the night […] he fills the silence with his happiest sound, simply that of brush upon canvas’ (D. Douglas Duncan, Picasso’s Picassos, London, 1961, p. 196).

Picasso shared his interest in depicting pigeons with his lifelong friend and artistic rival Henri Matisse. Writing about Picasso’s paintings of the 1950s, Neil Cox and Deborah Povey observed that his style softened ‘to the sentimental and aesthetically charming side of Matisse after the latter’s death in 1954. Picasso was very distressed by the loss of this fellow-traveller of ‘modern art’. Thus it was fitting that in paintings of pigeons and doves the Matissean side of Picasso was brought out, because both painters shared an affection for them. In the late forties, Matisse gave Picasso four white Milanese Pigeons, one of which was, by misinterpretation as a dove, to be the subject of a lithograph to become synonymous with the World Peace Congress of 1950’ (N. Cox and D. Povey, A Picasso Bestiary, London, 1995, pp. 78-79).

Fig. 1, Picasso observing pigeons, photograph by Edward Quinn