Pablo Picasso

Serge Férat (acquis de l'artiste vers 1916)
Eric Estorick, Londres (acquis du précédent vers 1950)

Stockholm, Moderna Museet, Pablo Picasso: A Retrospective, 1988-89, no. 178
Londres, The Grosvenor Gallery, Pablo Picasso: Drawings and Ceramics, 1908-1959, 1998, no. 9

Executed on cream wove paper, laid down on Japan paper. There is a slight minor diagonal flattened crease in the lower left corner and some pinhead-sized spots of foxing in the upper right corner. This work is in very good condition.
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signed 'Picasso' (upper left), inscribed 'Flandrin' (lower left), ink on paper. Executed circa 1916.

Fig. 1  Picasso en 1915-16, photographie Archives Picasso

Lorsqu'en février 1915, Eva Gouel, la maîtresse de Picasso, est admise à l'Hôpital Italien pour un long séjour, l'artiste est accueilli chez Serge Férat, un aristocrate russe installé à Paris depuis 1905, et Hélène d'Oettingen, sa cousine qui aurait aussi été la maîtresse du père de Férat. Férat était un exposant au Salon des Indépendants et, influencé par le cubisme, était un bon ami de Picasso et Apollinaire. C'est d'ailleurs Serge et Hélène qui avaient repris, à leurs frais, l'édition de la revue d'avant-garde Les Soirées de Paris et leur appartement, au septième étage du 229 Boulevard Raspail, était à l'époque un célèbre point de rencontre pour l'intelligentsia de Montparnasse. Malgré son inquiétude pour Eva, Picasso profite de ces quelques mois de mondanités et rencontre surtout de belles femmes et tout particulièrement Gaby Depeyre, sa future compagne. C'est d'un de ces dîners dont se souvient De Chirico dans son dessin de 1915 (lot 63) où, surplombés par le fameux autoportrait du Douanier, sont assis de gauche à droite Serge Férat, Hélène d'Oettingen, Picasso avec un tatouage marin, et Léopold Survage, un autre artiste russe.

C'est dans ce contexte de divertissement mondain et de rencontres amoureuses que sont réalisés les seize dessins qui nous intéressent, témoignages remarquables de cette époque d'effervescence parisienne. On dit en effet que lors d'un de ces rassemblements d'intellectuels boulevard Raspail, en 1916, au milieu des conversations sur la peinture et les artistes, alors qu'avait lieu un concours de dessin pour un verre de vin, Picasso réalise ces seize dessins satiriques.

 

In February 1915, when Eva Gouel, Picasso's lover, was admitted to the Italian Hospital for a long period of convalescence, the artist was invited to stay with Serge Férat, a Russian aristocrat who has lived in Paris since 1905, and his cousin Hélène d'Oettingen, who had also been Férat's father's mistress.  Férat was one of the exhibitors at the Salon des Indépendants and, influenced by Cubism, had been a good friend of Picasso and Apollinaire.  Moreover he and Hélène had taken over the publication of the avant-garde review Les Soirées de Paris, at their own costs, and their apartment, on the 7^th floor of 229 Boulevard Raspail, was at the time a well-known meeting-place for the Montparnasse intelligentsia.  In spite of how worried he was about Eva, Picasso enjoyed a busy social life during this period and met many beautiful women, notably Gaby Depeyre, his future companion.  It was one of these dinners that De Chirico recalled in his 1915 drawing (lot 63) in which, sitting beneath Le Douanier's famous self-portrait, from left to right we see Serge Férat, Hélène d'Oettingen, Picasso with a sailor's tattoo and Léopold Survage, another Russian artist.

It was in this context of fashionable socialising and romantic encounters that Picasso completed these sixteen drawings, remarkable souvenirs from this lively Parisian period.  In fact during one of these intellectual gatherings on the Boulevard Raspail in 1916, during conversations about painting and artists, there was a drawing competition in order to win a glass of wine, and this was when Picasso sketched these sixteen satirical drawings.