Pablo Picasso

Fritz Wotruba, Vienna

Marlborough Fine Art, Ltd., London

Acquired from the above in 1987

Christian Zervos,  Dessins de Picasso, 1892-1948,  Paris, 1949, no. 155, illustrated pl. 115

Very good condition. Executed on a thick sheet of white wove paper, not laid down, attached to the mount at all four corners, floating in the mount. Apart from some very slight discolouration to the extreme edges, this work is in very good condition.
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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

This masterpiece is one of Picasso's most provocative portrayals of the sexual act, rendered on the eve of the Nazi invasion of France.  Its emotional resonance conveys a fury and frustration that was perfectly suited to the times.  Rendered in pen and washes of ink, the drawing dates from May 2, 1940, only eight days before the beginning of the Nazi occupation of France.  Le Viol shows Picasso’s continuing focus on the turmoil raging throughout Europe that had first manifested in his art in 1937 with his monumental Guernica (fig. 1).

Picasso would remain in France throughout the occupation, believing that it was a moral obligation for himself and "artists who live and work with spiritual values cannot and should not remain indifferent to a conflict in which the highest values of humanity and civilization are at risk" (quoted in S. A. Nash, ed., Picasso and the War Years, San Francisco, 1998, p. 13).  As Steven A. Nash explains, Picasso's work during this period "became a private resistance effort, one that carried strong symbolic value for friends and other artists trapped within the same excoriating circumstances.  Through its inward journey, it opens a unique window onto the trauma of war and the pressures of life in occupied Paris" (ibid., p. 14).

Artistic representation of sexual domination and its consequences were prevalent in the canon of Western art.  The powerful imagery of Picasso's Le Viol evokes neo-Classical portrayals of the rape of the Sabine women by the conquering Roman army (fig. 3).   Picasso's depiction reconfigures the theme as an allegory for the 20th century, with the Germanic barbarian violating France's hallowed Marianne.  He appropriates the same figures -- the bearded man/minotaur and the voluptuous nude woman --  who appeared in his mythologically-themed drawings of the 1930s, and he recasts them in a more literal re-enactment of the story of the rape of Europa.  This ancient Greek myth tells of how Zeus transforms himself into a Bull and descends from the heavens to vanquish the virginal Europa.  Picasso's self-identification with the half-man, half-bull character of the Minotaur played a significant role in his representations of sexual power and frustration, and the present work is also loaded with these more personalized references (fig. 4).   Such biographical and historical interpretations are all the more tempting when considering this picture's clear ties to Titian's Rape of Europa and Picasso's desire to align himself with the legends of art history.

With its complex linearity and tonal gradation, Le Viol evidences extraordinary formal sophistication and sensitivity.  Picasso's technical brilliance is illustrated with abbreviated, linear hatching used to convey frenzied movement and blurring washes of ink to create an atmosphere of confusion.   His rendering of the bodies as a composite of disjointed and angular planes recalls his Cubist experimentations of the 1910s.  With these formal devices, Picasso not only alludes to chaos of wartime but also to his own tumultuous relationship with Dora Maar.  An artist herself, Dora was famously headstrong, dramatic, and demanding.  Picasso later admitted that she came to personify the war in his pictures from this period.  The couple's turbulent affair inspired Picasso to explore the conflict between passion and domination in his art, and Le Viol is one of his most visceral expressions of this theme.