Pablo Picasso

Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris
José Luis & Beatriz Plaza, Caracas (acquired from the above in 1966. Sold: Sotheby's, London, 8th December 1997, lot 14)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Caracas, Centro Cultural Consolidado, 5 Grandes de España, 1992

Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, œuvres de 1943 et 1944, Paris, 1962, vol. 13, no. 56, illustrated pl. 28 (as dating from 14th June 1943)
The Picasso Project, Picasso's Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings and Sculpture. Nazi Occupation, 1940-1944, San Francisco, 1999, no. 43-170, illustrated p. 239 (as dating from 14th June 1943)

The 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 fresher in the original.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Compotier et verres belongs to a series of still-life paintings Picasso executed in June 1943, featuring a bowl of cherries and glasses arranged on a tabletop. Painted in occupied Paris during the time when Picasso was not permitted to exhibit his work publicly, these still-lifes show an austerity in composition and colouration that characterised many of the artist's war-time works. The otherwise near-monochrome surface of the present work is dominated by the ochre fruit bowl, containing cherries indicated by red and black circles. Cherries frequently appeared in Picasso's still-lifes over the course of the following decade, and this work is one of his first depictions of this subject.

In the years following the war, Picasso was criticised by some of his contemporaries for the lack of open political engagement in his art. Rather than a vehicle for documenting the destructive reality that surrounded him, painting was for him a world of creativity into which he could escape, and his works of this period certainly express Picasso's state of mind in his own artistic language. Frances Morris wrote about the symbolism of Picasso's still-lifes of the early 1940s: 'above all it was the still-life genre that Picasso developed into a tool capable of evoking the most complex blend of pathos and defiance, of despair to hope, balancing personal and universal experience in an expression of extraordinary emotional power. The hardship of daily life, the fragility of human existence and the threat of death are themes that haunt Picasso's still-life paintings of the war and Liberation periods' (F. Morris, Paris Post War, Art and Existentialism 1945-1955 (exhibition catalogue), The Tate Gallery, London, 1993, p. 155).