Pablo Picasso's Femme NUE Couchée, an abstract nude portrait of his lover Marie-Thérèse Walter, will be auctioned for the first time next month and could be sold for more than $60 million. Marie Tres is known as Picasso's "Golden Muse", and in 1932 she was based on her masterpieces, including "Dream", "The Woman Sitting by the Window", "Nude, Green Leaves and Bust", "Woman in the Red Armchair" and other series of masterpieces.
In 2018, 45 years after Picasso's death, London's Tate Modern presented the artist's work in 1932 under the theme "Picasso 1932 : Love, Fame, Tragedy" (Picasso 1932: Love, Fame, Tragedy). Among the works on display are "Reclining Nude".
Pablo Picasso's Femme NUE Couchée
Created in April 1932, the work will be auctioned at Sotheby's auction house in New York on May 17, when it could become one of the most valuable portraits of Walter ever made. The rare portrait comes from one of the most prolific years of the artist's career, according to the auction house, depicting Walter as a sea creature with gray, languid limbs flanked by a woman's face.
Most of the women in Picasso's paintings of this period are abstract, and the images of the sun or moon are embedded in the holes of the body. The creation of the painting "Reclining Nude" shows his renewed confrontation with Surrealism. According to different perspectives, the figure in the painting can be a, but it may also be an octopus holding a skull. The inspiration for this work may have been the French biologist and documentary filmmaker Jean. Jean Painleve's early documentaries may also have come from traditional Japanese erotic paintings.
Sotheby's said in a statement that Picasso pioneered the history of nude figure painting, depicting a woman reclining in a highly abstract space, highlighting her fertile, sensual and elegant biological forms. It is a "groundbreaking, exceptionally sexy work."
Picasso first met Walter in Paris in 1927, when she was 17 years old and a beautiful woman with blond hair and blue eyes. Picasso was still married to his first wife, Olga Khokhlova. His wife is a Russian-Ukrainian ballet dancer. Walter later became the inspiration for one of Picasso's most popular paintings, drawings and sculptures.
1932 was arguably the "year of wonder" in which Picasso lived and worked, and after falling in love with Walter, Picasso's delicate balance between the love affair between his wife Olga and his lover Marie Tres Walter revealed, walter brought Picasso an endless source of inspiration, his paintings reached a new level of sensibility, and cemented his position as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.
Professionals at the auction house commented that this remarkable work was a complete departure from tradition and at the same time an affectionate ode to Picasso's boundless desire for Marie Terrace. Her fin-like, infinitely flexible limbs make this portrait fascinating, as it perfectly captures Picasso's muse. ”
The painting was purchased by the anonymous seller in 2006 from Picasso's descendants, after the painting had been preserved as Picasso's legacy for decades.
Picasso, The Woman Sitting by the Window (Marie-Thérèse) (Femme Assise Près d une Fenêtre, Marie-Thérèse)
Last year, Christie's New York sold Picasso's painting from the same period, "Femme Assise Près d une Fenêtre, Marie-Thérèse," for $103.41 million, initially estimated at $55 million.
The Woman Sitting by the Window (Marie Tres), also painted in 1932, where Picasso's artistic career was extremely important, was one of many of his classic portraits for his "blonde muse" Marie Tres. In Picasso's numerous portraits, Walter is often depicted as a person asleep or dreaming. But in this work, she sits upright in a chair, staring at the viewer, and seems to have grown wings.
In 1932, the year this work was created, Picasso's paintings reached new heights. At the age of 50, he held the first retrospective exhibition of his artistic career, during which he also published the first large-scale chronicle, which cemented Picasso's position as a pioneer and leader in the artistic trend of the time, and the aspiring artist burst out the strongest creative force of his life, painting many famous works such as "Dream" and "Nude, Green Leaves and Bust".
Picasso's Dream
Picasso in 1932
In 2010, Nude, Green Leaves and Busts were auctioned at Christie's in New York
In 2010, Picasso's "Nude, Green Leaves and Bust," also based on Marie Terrace, sold for more than $106 million in Christie's New York. In the painting, Picasso, who is in love, chooses arabesque velvet leaves to express the extraordinary vitality brought to him by the new love.
(This article is compiled and synthesized from CNN and Tate London's re-review of Picasso's exhibition)