Luba Female Caryatid Stool, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Emil Storrer, Zürich, acquired in Paris in the 1950s
Pablo Picasso, Mougins, acquired from the above in the 1950s
By descent from the above
Patricia Withofs, London, acquired from the above
Myron Kunin, Minneapolis, acquired from the above on June 8, 1987

Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, extended loan, 1987-2002
Hamline University Art Galleries, Saint Paul, Icons of Perfection. Figurative Sculpture from Africa, December 2, 2005 - February 11, 2006

Good condition for an object of this type and age. Hairline surface age cracks throughout. Two c-shaped pieces broken and glued at front and back of seat. Glued cracks in foot extending through legs of the figure, with fill for stabilization on the underside. Knot in top center of seat with small losses and wood fill. Marks, nicks, scratches, abrasions, dents and small chips throughout consistent with age and use. Fine glossy blackened patina with remains of red pigment in coiffure.
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.
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PICASSO AND THE LUBA CARYATID STOOL

Picasso began collecting African art almost as soon as he first encountered it at the Musée de l’Homme and in the studios of his friends Vlaminck, Derain and Matisse in 1906 or 1907.   These objects were so essential to his new art that he needed to live with them, rather than simply view them from a distance.  As his close friend the great poet and critic Guillaume Apollinaire recounted, “Picasso studies an object like a surgeon dissects a corpse.”  Without a doubt, Picasso intensely examined and internalized the radical ways African sculptures reimagined the human body.  Yet for him, these objects were far from dead; they were vital conceptions of form and expression that inspired him across his long career.

Picasso purchased the Luba Caryatid Stool when he saw it in the 1950s, yet the sculpture’s relevance for Picasso’s work seems to run through much of his œuvre, beginning with his first fascination with African art and continuing into his sculpture of the 1950s.  Perhaps Picasso bought it not only for its importance for his current work but also for its links to the rich past of his involvement with African art.

The Luba Caryatid Stool’s formal characteristics match the work Picasso created during his first, intense encounter with African art during 1907.  His painting Nude with Raised Arms (1907, Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection) shares not only the basically symmetrical pose of both arms extended up parallel to the head, but also the radical simplification of anatomy into angular, oblong sections. Moreover, both render the face as an oval that is largely repeated in the shape of the eyes.  Both Picasso’s painting, one of his crucial works related to Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, and the Luba Caryatid Stool reflect a conception of the figure, whether painted or sculpted, that values geometric symmetry and rhythm over naturalistic description.

This anti-naturalism extends across Picasso’s career and continues to suggest the relevance of the Caryatid Stool to later paintings, such as the monumental Grande Baigneuse (1929, Musée Picasso).  Yet the aspect of the Caryatid Stool that is perhaps more curious and engaging is its utilitarian use.  Picasso never made furniture, however, much of his painting, sculpture and drawings drew inspiration from practical object – guitars, chairs, bicycles and colanders, among others.  The broad stance and massive legs of the Nude with Raised Arms could suggest the four-square supports of a table, and in late decades Picasso explicitly drew inspiration from domestic objects.  The Luba Caryatid Stool seems particularly relevant to Picasso’s famous Anatomy, a series of drawings showing fantastic variations on the human figure that was published in the first issue of the Surrealist magazine Minotaure (1933, Musée Picasso).  Nearly every one of these “anatomies” derive elements from domestic furnishings, the appendages from turned legs of furniture, shoulders and hips from trays or table tops, and head or breasts from stuffed upholstery. 

Picasso might well have interpreted the Luba Caryatid Stool as playing this game in reverse.  Like Picasso’s Anatomies, the sculpture composes the figure from geometric elements that might serve as elements of furniture.  More importantly, it employs the human figure to make an actual piece of furniture.  It embodies an interplay of the artistic and the utilitarian, the figural and the abstract, that would have fascinated Picasso.  He continued to explore these ideas of transforming form and function throughout his career.   Perhaps his finest elaboration of these was his late Bathers (1956), a series of free-standing figures composed of household items that almost offer viewers a seat.  Thus, his purchase of the Stool in the 1950s seems perfectly attuned to his aesthetic concerns during that decade.

Michael FitzGerald, Professor of Fine Arts, Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut