Pablo Picasso

Executed on cream laid paper laid down on card. The top and left edges are slightly uneven. The sheet is slightly stained and there are a few pin-head sized spots of foxing, visible in the catalogue illustration. Light mount staining is visible along the left and bottom edge of the sheet as well as a minor restored dent (1cm) towards the right of the bottom edge, not visible when framed. The mount is time stained with glue remnants and losses, not visible when framed. This work is in good condition.
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signed 'Picasso' (lower right), pencil on paper. Executed circa 1919.

Cette étude souligne la richesse des préoccupations esthétiques de Pablo Picasso en 1919. 

La gauche de la feuille présente Olga en ballerine, coiffée comme l'Odalisque d'Ingres avec la raie au milieu, en train de nouer son corset. Le style néoclassique de la ligne est celui que Picasso a développé depuis sa rencontre avec Olga en 1917 et sa découverte des ballets russes. Zervos situe l'exécution de la version définitive de cette étude (mine de plomb, Z, III, 357) à Paris, soit juste avant le départ de Picasso à Londres en mai 1919, où il travaille sur les décors du ballet Le Tricorne. 

La droite de la feuille montre une nature morte cubiste composée d'une guitare, d'une partition et d'un compotier. Ces trois éléments se retrouveront sur le guéridon de la célèbre série des Natures mortes devant une fenêtre ouverte que Picasso réalise à partir de l'été 1919, à Saint Raphaël, et qu'il expose en octobre de la même année chez son nouveau marchand Paul Rosenberg. 

La confrontation de ces deux styles très différents mais explorés simultanément par Picasso manifeste l'extrême sûreté du trait auquel l'artiste était parvenu à l'aube des années 1920. Elle atteste surtout de la variété d'effets dont Picasso est capable dans chacune des deux veines cubiste et néoclassique. Côté Olga, la ligne appuyée sur le bras gauche modèle la chair ronde et musclée de la danseuse russe. A l'inverse, le vêtement d'Olga s'évapore dans une succession de traits extrêmement légers. Tel est le génie de Picasso : érotiser un personnage sans le déshabiller mais au contraire en le dessinant en train d'ajuster son vêtement.

 

This study offers a striking insight into Picasso's aesthetic preoccupations in 1919.

The left side of the sheet depicts Olga as a ballerina, with her hair tied back in a centre parting like Ingres' Odalisque, in the middle of fastening her corset.  The drawing is executed in the Neoclassical style that Picasso had been developing since he met Olga in 1917 and discovered the Russian ballet.  Zervos situates the definitive version of this study (pencil, Z, III, 357) in Paris, just before Picasso's departure for London in May 1919, when he was working on the sets for the ballet Le Tricorne.

The right side of the sheet depicts a Cubist still life composed of a guitar, a musical score and a fruit bowl. These three elements would reappear on the pedestal table in the celebrated series of Still Lives in front of an Open Window that Picasso would begin in summer 1919 in Saint Raphaël, and exhibit in October of the same year at the gallery of his new dealer Paul Rosenberg.

The juxtaposition of these two very different styles that were simultaneously explored by Picasso demonstrates the acute artistic confidence that he had acquired by the end of the decade.  Above all it attests to the variety of effects that Picasso was capable of achieving in both the Cubist and Neoclassical style. On Olga's side, the heavy line of the left arm sculpts the toned, muscular flesh of the Russian dancer, while her tutu, on the other hand, evaporates into a series of extremely light pencil strokes. Such is Picasso's genius: to eroticise a figure without undressing her but rather by capturing her as she adjusts her clothing.