Pablo Picasso

Estate of the artist
Private Collection, France (by descent from the above)
Pace Wildenstein, New York
Private Collection, United States
Gasiunasen Gallery, Palm Beach
Harriet Griffin Fine Art, New York (acquired from the above)
Acquired from the above 

New York, Pace Wildenstein, Picasso and Drawing, 1995

Excellent condition. The sheet is clean and the medium very fresh. Executed on cream-colored wove paper, not laid down, hinged to a mount at two places on top edge on verso. Edges are deckled. Two soft creases, one near extreme upper right hand corner and the other at center of right edge. One or two spots of fly spec, otherwise fine.
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The arresting gaze forms the focal point of Picasso’s portrait of his lover Françoise Gilot, engaging the viewer in an inextricable dialogue with the artist’s muse. Within the trajectory of his portraiture, Françoise has come to signify a time of intense happiness for Picasso. The two artists met in May 1943 while Picasso was still in his tumultuous relationship with Dora Maar, and it was not until 1946 that he and Francoise settled in Cap d'Antibes in the South of France. The period that followed was marked by great personal fulfillment, during which Picasso was, probably more than at any other time, devoted to his family, including the couple's two children, Claude and Paloma. This happiness in private life spilled into the artist's work, resulting in a number of portraits of his muse and their children.

This Portrait de Françoise is a rarity among Picasso’s portraits of Gilot for its naturalism and its fidelity to form. Michael Fitzgerald notes, “Picasso's portraits of Françoise were not drawn from life…unlike in the cases of Picasso's other wives and mistresses, there are almost none that reproduce her features strictly" (Michael Fitzgerald, "A Triangle of Ambitions: Art, Politics, and Family during the Postwar Years with Françoise Gilot," in Picasso and Portraiture, London, 1996, p. 416). Here, Picasso has simplified his technique to present Gilot faithfully and uninhibited with a halo of hair framing her steadfast visage. As Frank Elgar pointed out, "the portraits of Françoise Gilot have a Madonna-like appearance, in contrast to the tormented figures he was painting a few years earlier" (Frank Elgar, Picasso, New York, 1972, p. 123).