Pablo Picasso

Club Amici dell'Arte, Milan
Private Collection, London (acquired from the above in 1972)
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Executed on cream wove paper laid down on a sheet of restorer's paper, mounted on card. The left edge is perforated having been removed from a sketchbook. The top left and bottom left edges are rounded. There are several scattered soft creases throughout the sheet and a few small repaired tears around the edges which have all been stabilised by the backing sheet. Otherwise, this work is in overall good condition.
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Nu couché endormi is an extraordinarily sensual and intimate depiction of a woman lost in the depths of slumber. The confident and spontaneous handling is typical of the celebrated sense of urgency in Picasso’s later works, testament to his passion and vitality that only seemed to grow with age. There are of course many precedents for the subject of the sleeping nude in Picasso’s œuvre, perhaps most famously those soft depictions of his young lover Marie-Thérèse from the 1930s. The tradition of the reclining nude is a very old one in the history of art, and Picasso was not the only modern master to adapt and develop the genre to suit his own artistic inclinations. It is near-impossible not to compare Picasso’s examples  of this subject to those alluring depictions of odalisques by his great friend and rival Henri Matisse, to the serpentine lines of Amadeo Modigliani’s versions, or to those of Gustav Klimt, to name but a few. What is most distinctive about Picasso’s nudes though, is the insight that they offer into his own personal life. There is none of the detachment of the paid model: these are his lovers and the resulting sense of possession is undeniable. Also distinctive, is the remarkable number of Picasso’s nudes depicted in the midst of sleep, and his particular fascination in, and attraction to, woman in this most vulnerable and unselfconscious capacity.  Woman asleep is woman in her most transported, intangible, and mysterious state, in other words, at her most desirable. Robert Rosenblum has described the ‘voyeuristic rapture’ so evident in his depictions of sleeping Marie-Thérèse, words that might just as well have been written about the present work.

Nu couché endormi is an exciting recent discovery, and belongs to an important group of eight sleeping nudes that Picasso executed on 28^th February 1954 (Zervos vol. XVI, nos. 242-249). The present work is one of the most full realised and resolved examples of this series. This extraordinary suite of drawings is demonstrative of the enduring energy and virility that Picasso felt at this time in his life, each example a more frenzied attempt to permeate this woman’s mysterious allure. When the present work was executed, Picasso’s nine-year relationship with Francoise Gilot had just come to an end, and he had recently met Jacqueline Roque, a 27 year old sales assistant from the Madoura pottery studio in Vallauris, who was to become the last great love of his life. This series of nudes offers an extraordinary insight into the artist’s emotional state in what can be considered as the final romantic transition in Picasso’s life, and hints at the unparalleled eroticism that would inspire and characterise his artistic output in the decades to come.

What is particularly striking about the about the present work is the way that Picasso has seemingly created two very different portraits within the sensuous confines of a single body. The left half of the drawing is imbued with a tender intimacy and sense of unconscious passivity on the model’s part, and an overarching sense of voyeurism and desire for possession on the artist’s part. The right-hand side of the image, however, evokes a very different character. The figure’s provocative pose, with her legs crossed towards the viewer, lends the image an altogether more coquettish feel. The fact that she is wearing nothing but shoes - and the inclusion of a bouquet of flowers in the background - give the work a raw sensuality, and nod to the early stages of a love affair, as well as to the imagery of Manet’s infamous portrait of provocation, Olympia, of 1863. This tale of two halves could be interpreted as a reflection of the artist’s own complicated, oft-conflicting relationship with women, and the contrasting ways he regarded and mythicised them. As well as being testament to Picasso’s natural virtuosity for draughtsmanship, the heavenly voluptuousness of the present work is a celebration of Picasso’s most enduring obsession and artistic inspiration, the one that led him to claim that 'Art can only be erotic [...] Art can't be chaste. One ought to forbid it to ignorant innocents and never put anyone in contact with it who is insufficiently prepared for it. Yes, art is dangerous. Or if it is chaste, it's not art’.