巴布羅·畢加索

Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris  (acquired from the artist)

Kootz Gallery, New York (acquired from the above)

Private Collection, Japan

Sale: Germann Auktionshaus, Zurich, June 1, 1999, lot 16

Private Collection, Switzerland (acquired at the above sale and sold: Christie's, London, February 9, 2011, lot 32) 

Richard Green Fine Art, London (acquired at the above sale)

Acquired from the above in April 2011

Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, Oeuvres de 1965 à 1967, vol. 25, Paris, 1972, no. 134, illustrated pl. 76

The Picasso Project, ed., Picasso's Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings and Sculpture: The Sixties II, 1964-1967, San Francisco, 2002, no. 65-141, illustrated p. 203

Original canvas. Apart from a small area of retouching to the yellow pigment at the centre of the composition visible under ultra-violet light, this work is in very good condition. Please note that the consignor purchased the present work from Richard Green Fine Art in April 2011, who had purchased this work at auction in February 2011.
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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Picasso painted Tête d'homme in 1965 at his new home of Notre-Dame de Vie. He would spend the rest of his life with Jacqueline at this grand estate overlooking Cannes and surrounded by olive groves, where every creative medium was at his disposal.  His production during these first months reflected a renewed interest in linearity and three-dimensionality, as evidenced by the sheet-metal portrait sculptures and etchings that he completed alongside his paintings and drawings.  The present work is one in the continuation of a theme that the artist began exploring at the end of 1964.  While clearly a product of his creative influences at the time, Tête d'homme is also indicative of the direction that Picasso's art would take during his final years.  The intimate, frontal depiction and the focus on an individualized male subject presage the many heroic Musketeers and Cavaliers who would come to dominate the artist's final years.

Picasso's aim with the present picture was to blur the boundaries between life and art, creating "someone who exists."  He told his friend Hélène Parmelin, who visited him at Notre-Dame de Vie during these months, that "sometimes there's a head that's so true that you can have a relationship with that head just as with a real one" (quoted in Hélène Parmelin, Picasso, Intimate Secrets of a Studio at Notre Dame de Vie, New York, 1966, p. 80).  With their imperfections and oddities, Picasso's depictions of thesse young boys and men possess a humanity that the artist felt was absent in the 'abstract' art of his contemporaries.  Parmelin considers Picasso's artistic alchemy, observing that "in order to attain the man as he is, he even takes away his sacrosanct features: he invests and substitutes them for his own features which endow the man with a painting face as true as the other, and yet completely independent of the other" (ibid., p. 82).