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PABLO PICASSO | Combat de faune et de centaure
Estimate
250,000 - 350,000 EUR
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Description
- Pablo Picasso
- Combat de faune et de centaure
- signed picasso (lower right); numbered (II) and bears the inscription Golfe-Juan 21 Août 46 (on the reverse)
- India ink and watercolour on paper
- 50,2 x 65,7 cm; 19 3/4 x 25 7/8 in.
- Executed on August 21, 1946 in Golfe-Juan.
Provenance
Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris (ph. no. 60163; acquired directly from the artist)
Private collection, France
Thence by descent to the present owner
Private collection, France
Thence by descent to the present owner
Literature
Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, Œuvres de 1944 à 1946, Paris, 1963, vol. 14, no. 207, illustrated p. 93
Condition
Please contact the Impressionist and Modern Art Department for the condition report for this lot.
"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."
"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."
Catalogue Note
'It’s strange; in Paris I never draw fauns, centaurs or mythological heroes like these: it seems as though they only live here.'
Picasso, speaking about Côte d'Azur
Executed with a breathtaking economy of line, Combat de faune et de centaure features two familiar characters from Picasso’s output from the 1940s. From 1945 onwards, Picasso returned to Golfe-Juan on the French Riviera every summer, as he used to do before the war. The classical Mediterranean influences, the newly restored peace and his marital bliss with Françoise Gilot aroused in him a sense of renewal: a series of drawings imbued with cheerfulness and serenity. Fauns, centaurs and nymphs have taken the place of the deformed monsters of the war years. Picasso produced a similar series, part of which is grouped under the title Antipolis, at the Palais Grimaldi in Antibes. In the form of a most stripped-down figurative drawing, Picasso dissociates different elements which he combines to construct the figures of the centaur and the faun. In the strict interplay of the triangles, he draws together some elements that are closer to reality: faces, blades of grass, and so on. Geometric coloured shapes punctuate this simple line drawing. A silhouette of a green fish slips between the fragmented limbs of the centaur to finally unite the man with the animal’s rump. The frieze arrangement of the characters gives the scene a general feeling of calm. The mythological references and this vision of Arcadian harmony, present in so many of Picasso’s works from the 1940s, were a way of forgetting about the war and moving toward the bucolic rural idyll of classical Greece, the antithesis of such a troubled modern world.
Picasso, speaking about Côte d'Azur
Executed with a breathtaking economy of line, Combat de faune et de centaure features two familiar characters from Picasso’s output from the 1940s. From 1945 onwards, Picasso returned to Golfe-Juan on the French Riviera every summer, as he used to do before the war. The classical Mediterranean influences, the newly restored peace and his marital bliss with Françoise Gilot aroused in him a sense of renewal: a series of drawings imbued with cheerfulness and serenity. Fauns, centaurs and nymphs have taken the place of the deformed monsters of the war years. Picasso produced a similar series, part of which is grouped under the title Antipolis, at the Palais Grimaldi in Antibes. In the form of a most stripped-down figurative drawing, Picasso dissociates different elements which he combines to construct the figures of the centaur and the faun. In the strict interplay of the triangles, he draws together some elements that are closer to reality: faces, blades of grass, and so on. Geometric coloured shapes punctuate this simple line drawing. A silhouette of a green fish slips between the fragmented limbs of the centaur to finally unite the man with the animal’s rump. The frieze arrangement of the characters gives the scene a general feeling of calm. The mythological references and this vision of Arcadian harmony, present in so many of Picasso’s works from the 1940s, were a way of forgetting about the war and moving toward the bucolic rural idyll of classical Greece, the antithesis of such a troubled modern world.