Pablo Picasso

Family of the artist
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Josep Palau i Fabre, Picasso: From the Ballets to Drama (1917-1926), Barcelona, 1999, no. 1426, illustrated in colour p. 395 (titled Olga méfiante)


The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Maya Widmaier Picasso.
The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Claude Picasso.

Canvas is unlined and there is no evidence of retouching under ultra-violet light. This work is in very good original condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration, although slightly stronger and deeper in the original.
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This exquisite portrait of the artist's first wife, Olga Khokhlova, dates from Picasso's Neo-Classical period of the early 1920s. The term 'Neo-Classical' refers to the artist's conscious affiliation with the art of the Greek and Roman world and his attempt to incorporate a linear precision and clear draughtsmanship into his art. Whilst Picasso's focus on the classical age was a product of a larger movement, or 'call to order,' that dominated the European avant-garde after World War I, his approach to this aesthetic was also influenced by more personal factors. At this point in his life Picasso was already one of the most celebrated artists living in Paris, and he sought to align himself with the great artists of the past. The predecessor for whom he had profound respect was the French Neo-Classical painter Ingres, whose serene and timelessly beautiful odalisques may have inspired the mood of the present work. 

 

Olga Khokhlova (1891-1955) was a Ukrainian-Russian ballerina who had met Picasso in the spring of 1917, while working for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, which she had joined in 1911. In February 1917 Picasso arrived in Rome to join Diaghilev's troupe, and stayed there for several weeks, working on sketches for the costumes and stage sets. Picasso met Olga during one of his visits to the rehearsals and performances and, falling in love with this beautiful and sophisticated woman, followed her with the Ballets Russes to Madrid and Barcelona during their summer season. As was the case with all his women, Olga immediately became a dominant subject in his art as well as the catalyst of a new style. Her sturdy bone structure - a long straight nose, the sweeping arch of her brow and the graceful oval shape of her face - were perfectly suited to the type of linearity and solidity that characterised Picasso's Neo-Classical painting. The couple married in the summer of 1918, and in February 1921 their son Paulo was born, inspiring a number of works on the theme of the mother and child (fig. 1). These compositions feature a dynamic, joyful image of Olga, mostly holding or playing with her newborn son. The present portrait was executed in the autumn of 1923, when Picasso and his family returned to Paris, having spent the summer in Cap d'Antibes, and depicts Olga in a more pensive mood.

 

 

Olga Picasso in Fontainebleau, summer 1921. Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow

Fig. 1, Pablo Picasso, Mère et enfant, 1921, oil on canvas, Private Collection. Sold: Sotheby's, New York, 15th November 1989

Fig. 2, Pablo Picasso, Portait d'Olga, 1923, oil on canvas, Collection Marina Picasso

Fig. 3, Olga at rue la Boétie, Paris, 1921