Pablo Picasso

Executed in July 1933, Sur la plage belongs to a series of works  Picasso created during his stay in Cannes where he was on holiday with his wife Olga and their son Paulo (fig. 1). Although depicting the Mediterranean setting that surrounded them during the summer, Picasso’s works of this period do not take his family as their subject. His muse and inspiration at this time was his mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter, whom he had met in 1927. It was not until 1935, when Marie-Thérèse was pregnant with their daughter Maya, that Picasso and Olga separated, allowing the artist to lead a full-time relationship with Marie-Thérèse. In the meantime, the artist continuously depicted Marie-Thérèse in his compositions, and used Surrealism in such a way as to transform the features of his mistress and thus hide his obsession from Olga.

Captivated by her youthful, unpredictable spirit as well as by her voluptuous physique, Picasso’s renderings of Marie-Thérèse are erotically charged, often showing her in the state of sleep and carefree abandon or, as in the present work, playing on the beach. Sur la plage is dominated by two female figures, both representing Marie-Thérèse, with a blooming palm tree between them whose phallic connotations suggest the artist’s lust for his muse. In the figure on the left, her anatomy is transformed into geometric forms, and her long blond hair gives her a free, youthful spirit. The figure on the right is a combination of geometrical and biomorphic shapes accentuating her sexuality, her enlarged womb painted in red reflecting Picasso’s dream of conceiving a child with her. The cabin door on the far right, opening into a dark interior, can be seen as a symbol of marriage and domesticity that were still tying him to Olga. Writing about Picasso’s depictions of Marie-Thérèse, William Rubin commented: ‘None of Picasso’s earlier relationships had provoked such sustained, lyrical power, such as sense of psychological awareness and erotic completeness… Picasso proceeds from his intense feeling for [Marie-Thérèse]… he paints the body contemplated, loved and self-contemplating’ (W. Rubin, Picasso in the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1971, p. 138).

Fig. 1, Pablo Picasso, Sur la plage, 11th July 1933, watercolour and ink on paper, Private Collection, United Kingdom