According to the Guardian, Spanish modernist painter Pablo Picasso's "Lying Naked" will debut on May 17 at the highly anticipated Sotheby's Modern Art Evening Sale in New York. The painting, a portrait of Picasso's lover Mary Teresa Walter, is expected to sell for more than $60 million, reflecting the global fanaticism for the painting.
Femme nue couchée (Pablo Picasso).
Lying is a biomorphic remodeling of the classic theme of in Western painting. In the painting, Picasso painted his muse lover gray, languid limbs reminiscent of sea creatures with sexy curvy bodies. The feminine multi-faceted is abstracted in the visual imagination, breaking through the shackles of the biological body and extending in the wirelessly flexible fin-like limbs. At the same time, a very stylish female facial contour is embedded in it, and the pair of appendages in the center of the picture always draw the viewer's gaze and bring it into the imagery of the eyes and breasts.
"Picasso's series of portraits for his muse lover are undoubtedly an undeniable sign of twentieth-century modern art," analyzed Brooke Lampley, sotheby's global art sales chairman in charge of selling the painting, "in which the painting "Lying Nude" perfectly captures the female figure that fascinates the painter, composing a deeply affectionate ode, from which his infinite desire for Walter is fully seen, and thus the ultimate expression of genius." ”
This passport photo is none other than Picasso's muse, Marie Teresa Walter. Image source: GETTY IMAGES.
Equally appealing is the large brushstroke of aqua blue backgrounds in the paintings. Picasso's lover Walter was once a dynamic swimmer, and her graceful gesture in the water was a lasting charm for Picasso, who had never learned to swim. It is worth mentioning that the love affair between the two is also flourishing by the sea. In 1927, the 45-year-old Picasso met the 17-year-old Walter for the first time through the window of the Galeries Lafayette department store in Paris, France, and was then fascinated by it. At that moment, he knew that he was in love with her, and he was as nervous as a stunned head: "Hello, I am Picasso." However, the girl did not know who this "Picasso" was. The following summer, the couple meet by the sea, and Picasso secretly places Walter in a holiday camp not far from his then-wife Olga and son Paul.
In 1931, his marriage to his wife Olga was on the verge of rupture. Previously, the image of his lover Walter appeared in his paintings almost subtly as symbols, until the end of 1931, Picasso was no longer willing to suppress walter's creative inspiration, and immediately began a year-long crazy creation, which was also the year in which he painted a series of portraits for Walter. These portraits differ from traditional portraits, where the images are often difficult to identify, and he uses various complex forms of reorganization and the mixing and matching of highly impactful colors to depict the true feelings brought to him by these two women in his life, contributing to a Picasso-style "irreducible strangeness".
"There were many notable years in Picasso's long and dramatic career, but 1932 was particularly prominent." Julian Dawes, co-director of modern art at Sotheby's New York, said. In 2018, the Tate Also held an exhibition dedicated to Picasso's work in 1932.
Picasso's paintings have historically been the darlings of the high-end art market, with the top five Picasso's works sold for more than $100 million at auction. The last work to break through this price scale was Femme assise près d'une fenêtre (The Woman Sitting by the Window), also painted in 1932 and depicting Walter. It is reported that before the auction began, there were predictions that the price could be as high as $55 million, and the actual sale was finally $103.4 million, which became one of the few high-priced works in recent years, indicating that the high-end art market has rebounded after the collapse of the new crown epidemic.
Resources:
[1]https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/apr/07/picasso-portrait-of-lover-and-muse-to-appear-at-auction-for-first-time
[2]https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/mar/11/picasso-1932-love-fame-tragedy-review-tate-modern
[3]https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/04/07/picassos-muse-as-sea-creaturewill-it-break-dollar100m-at-sothebys-new-york-sale
[4]https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/picasso-marie-therese-sothebys-intl-scli/index.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2022/04/07/rarely-seen-portrait-of-pablo-picassos-muse-makes-auction-debut/?sh=312f96bdef60
Compiled | Shen Lu
Editor| Li Yongbo
Proofreading | Liu Jun