Pablo Picasso

Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris
Private Collection, The Netherlands
Acquired by the present owner circa 1996

Hélène Parmelin, Picasso, Notre Dame de Vie, Paris, 1966, illustrated in colour p. 143
Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, œuvres de 1964, Paris, 1971, vol. XXIV, no. 256, illustrated pl. 95
The Picasso Project, Picasso Paintings, Watercolours, Drawings and Sculpture. The Sixties II, 1964-1967, San Francisco, 2002, no. 64-250, illustrated p. 75

The canvas is not lined and there are no signs of retouching under UV light. This work is in good original condition. Colours: Fairly accurate, although the tones are overall warmer and more harmonious in the original.
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Picasso has, on many occasions, been described as an artist without a consistent, identifiable style. The prodigious variety and extraordinary virtuosity of his œuvre has prevented art historians and critics alike from pinning him down or predicting his next move. Indeed, as the artist himself remarked in 1963, 'you see me here, and yet I've already changed, I'm already elsewhere. I never stay in one place and that's why I have no style' (quoted in André Verdet, Picasso (exhibition catalogue), Musée de l'Athénée, Geneva, 1963, n.p.). Picasso's late works are certainly no exception; powerful and expressive, every canvas exhibits the sheer creative immediacy and unpredictability which has become the artist's defining quality.  

In terms of iconography, however, Picasso's body of work presents a number of consistent themes. One in particular dominates above all others: the contradistinction of male and female. This theme was played out over Picasso's long career in every possible permutation – the painter and his model; the lascivious Satyr and the seductive Nymph; rapacious beast and genteel maiden. In each instance, the source of inspiration for Picasso was the notion of sheer Dionysian abandon and it is this preoccupation with the essential, instinctive elements of the human condition which forced Picasso to remain a figurative painter.

During the final two decades of his life, Picasso produced a great series of works devoted to the theme of the painter and model. That which he created in 1964 stands out for its particularly fervent exploration of this fertile relationship. Almost invariably, the artist is shown on the left of the canvas, often with an authoritative 'X' inscribed across his face. The model – seated, recumbent and often a little perturbed – is depicted on the right. The same is true of the present example, Deux têtes. Although the trappings of the artist's studio are not evident, the attributes of male and female are entirely consistent with the series. The artist is coloured green whilst the model is depicted in voluptuous flesh pink. This painting marks a climax within the series; it achieves the long-frustrated union of male and female, consummating Picasso's artistic and erotic fascination with the theme.

This dynamic of male and female is complicated by Picasso's continuous dialogue with both the classical and the contemporary. In the early Peintre et son modèle Picasso plays with this dichotomy – the abstracted three-eyed model is thoroughly modern whilst the artist's representation is an academic profile. Thirty-six years later, this visual juxtaposition and subversive intent remains evident in Deux têtes. Picasso's loose, expressive style contrasts with the model's classical profile – unmistakably that of Picasso's second wife Jacqueline Roque. Moreover, the painter, with his stern countenance and characteristic beard, is represented as a philosopher. 

The very personal iconography on which Picasso elaborated during these years, together with his almost hermetic existence at 'La Californie' in Cannes, has often encouraged collectors to see his late work in isolation – as being separate from developments in contemporary art. From the moment of Cubism onwards, Picasso's inclination towards both the abstract and the figurative produced works which, in many respects, paved the way towards Abstract Expressionism and even Pop Art. In Girl with Beach Ball III, Roy Lichtenstein utilises the abstracted double profile for which Picasso is well known; like the Deux têtes, this work both subverts and reinforces the canon of representational art. Picasso's impetuous, expressive technique – as demonstrated by the present painting – situates his work of this period in the domain of Abstract Expressionism. Indeed, his works from this period continued to inform contemporary artists. Andy Warhol's Head (After Picasso) seizes upon the idea of repetition in Picasso's œuvre and appropriates this into the aesthetic of Pop Art. The result of this homage is to further demonstrate the importance of Picasso's late work within the pantheon of Post-War Art.