Pablo Picasso

Estate of the artist

Marina Picasso

Private Collection

Munich, Haus der Kunst; Cologne, Josef-Haubrich Kunsthalle; Frankfurt, Städtische Galerie im Städelschen Kunstinstitut; Zürich, Kunsthaus, Collection Marina Picasso, 1981-82, no. 227

Tokyo, National Gallery of Modern Art; Kyoto Municipal Museum, Picasso, Masterpieces from Marina Picasso Collection and from Museums in USA and USSR, 1983, no. 295

Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria; Sidney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Picasso, 1984, no. 141

New York, Jan Krugier Gallery, Pablo Picasso Metamorphoses, Works from 1898 to 1973 from the Marina Picasso Collection, 2002, no. 83

Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, oeuvres de 1944 à 1946,  vol. 14, Paris, 1963, no. 33, illustrated pl. 21

J. Merli, Picasso, Buenos Aires, 1948, no. 624, illustrated

Brigitte Léal, Christine Piot and Marie-Laure Bernadac, The Ultimate Picasso, New York, 2000, no. 875, illustrated p. 357

The Picasso Project, Picasso's Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings and Sculpture, Nazi Occupation, 1940-1944, San Francisco, 1999, no. 44-151, illustrated p. 376 (with incorrect Zervos number)

The present  picture is one of four portraits of a young boy that Picasso completed between August 13 and August 15, 1944 (Zervos, vol. 14, nos. 30, 31, 33 and 37).  The heightened sensitivity to detail apparent in this exquisitely worked ink and wash drawing is an unexpected development in Picasso's production of that summer.    Only a few weeks before he executed this work, he completed a series of highly abstracted tomato plants and views from his studio.   Picasso's more naturalistic approach in this work, and in a few portraits of his daughter Maya completed in mid-August, underscore his long-held belief in the value of draftsmanship.   Indeed, the primacy of drawing was one of the most important elements in all phases of Picasso's career, and here he offers ample evidence of his range as one of the most accomplisehd draftsmen in the entire history of art.

It is perhaps not without significance that the execution of these pictures coincided with the Allied troups' liberation of Paris -- a time for reassessing the past and evaluating the future.  The 'realistic' portraits that Picasso completed during these few last weeks of summer harken back to his Neo-Classical compositions from the 1920s, particularly those that he completed of his young son Paulo.   But these pictures of 1944 are undeniably insightful in their own right, and remind us of the attention to nuance and sensitivity to line at the core of even Picasso's most abstract works.   

Fig. 1, Photograph of Picasso in his studio, September 1944. Photograph by Lee Miller