Pablo Picasso

Buchholz Gallery (Curt Valentin), New York
Mr & Mrs Harry L. Winston Malbin, Birmingham, Michigan (acquired from the above in 1947; sale: Sotheby's, New York, 16th May 1990, lot 73)
Private Collection, Switzerland
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1997

Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Museum of Cranbrook Academy of Art, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Lewis Winston Collection, 1951, no. 72, illustrated in the catalogue
Albion, Michigan, Albion College, Selections from The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Lewis Winston, Birmingham, 1956, no. 24
Detroit, Detroit Institute of Art (& travelling in the United States) Collecting Modern Art: Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings from The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Lewis Winston, 1957-58, no. 82, illustrated in the catalogue
Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, The Varied Works of Picasso, 1962
New York, Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, Artist and Maecenas, A Tribute to Curt Valentin, 1963, no. 176, illustrated in the catalogue
Fort Worth, Fort Worth Art Center Museum & Dallas, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Picasso: Two Concurrent Retrospective Exhibitions, 1967, no. 168, illustrated in the catalogue
Indiana, Indiana University Art Museum, Reflection Thru a Collector's Eye: A Selection of Prints and Drawings from the Collection of Lydia and Harry Lewis (Dr. and Mrs. Barnett Malbin), 1971, no. 111, illustrated in the catalogue
Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, Selections from The Lydia and Harry Lewis Winston Collection (Dr. and Mrs. Barnett Malbin), 1972-73
New York, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Futurism: A Modern Focus. The Lydia and Harry Lewis Winston Collection (Dr. and Mrs. Barnett Malbin), 1973-74, no. 80, illustrated in the catalogue

Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, Supplément aux volumes I à V, Paris, 1954, vol. VI, no. 1178, illustrated p. 141

Executed on cream wove paper and not laid down. Taped to the mount at all four corners and floating in the mount. The lower edge is unevenly cut and the upper edge is slightly deckled. There is an artist pinhole to the centre of the upper edge. The sheet is slightly time stained and there are two minor spots of foxing to the lower left quadrant. This work is in overall 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. 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."

Of all the highly varied manifestations of Picasso's art throughout his long career, his Cubist compositions are arguably his most inventive and art-historically important. Picasso, along with Georges Braque, pioneered this artistic movement and introduced the avant-garde to new levels of pictorial abstraction. The influence of this movement would send vital reverberations through the course of Modernism. Still-life was a favoured subject for both Picasso and Braque, and never before had this age-old theme been interpreted with such a radical approach. Picasso experimented with the deconstruction and reconstruction of form and the manipulation of space in these compositions, exposing the physical properties of the objects he was depicting. Nature morte, executed in 1913, is a wonderful rendition of this theme. Picasso presents the objects on the table as they would appear from several different vantage points, providing a destabilised and fluctuating vision of the seemingly solid world around us. 

Nature morte was owned for decades by Lydia Winston Malbin, the legendary American collector who acquired the first work by Jackson Pollock to enter a private collection from Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Century Gallery and who co-organised the first show of abstract art in Detroit at the Detroit City Club with Hilla Rebay (the director of the Museum of Nonobjective Art, which would later become the Guggenheim Museum). She befriended artists from Brancusi to Severini and built one of the most important private collections of Futurist and Modern art in the United States.  In May 1990, Sotheby's sold a large portion of her original collection, and the event became known as one of the most important sales in modern auction history.