Pablo Picasso

Estimate

1,500,000 - 2,000,000 USD

bidding is closed

Description

Pablo Picasso
NATURE MORTE A LA CAFETIERE
Signed Picasso (lower left)
Oil on canvas
31 7/8 by 39 3/8 in.
81 by 100 cm

Provenance

Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, New York
Himan Brown, New York (sold: Christie's, New York, May 15, 1990, lot 64)
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Exhibited

New York, Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, The First World-Showing of Paintings of 1947 by Picasso, 1948, no. 8
Berlin, Nationalgalerie; Munich, Kunsthalle der Hypo Kulturstiftung; Hamburg, Kunsthalle, Picasso, Die Zeit nach Guernica, 1992-93

Literature

Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, oeuvres de 1946 à 1953, vol. 15, Paris, no. 45, illustrated pl. 26
The Picasso Project, Picasso's Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings and Sculpture, Liberation and Post-War Years, 1944-1949, San Franci🐲sco, 2000, ⛄no. 47-034, illustrated p. 180

Catalogue Note

In Nature morte à la cafetière the table nearly dominates the composition. Occupying rather more than half the surface of the canvas, it supports two objects: a highly abstracted white vase on the left and a bright blue coffee pot on the right which asserts itself in this monochromatic environment by the vividness of its color.

During the war years, Picasso's still-lifes had included a variety of objects including skulls, bull’s skulls and sheep’s heads as well as various kitchen utensils that were components of a commentary on the horrors of war and the brevity of life. Describing Still Life with Sausage, May 10, 1941 (Zervos, vol. 11, no. 112), Picasso referred to “an atmosphere like Philip II dark and dismal” (Harriet Grossman and Sidney Janis, Picasso, The Recent Years, 1939-1940, New York, 1946, pl. 60). Even after the end of the war and the beginning of Picasso’s relationship with Françoise Gilot, his still-lifes frequently returned to the consideration of questions of life and death as, for example, in Crane, oursins, lampe sur une table, November 27, 1946 (Zervos, vol. 14, no. 290, Musée Picasso, Paris) and Volaille et couteau sur une table, March 21🅘, 1947 (Zervos, vol. 15, no. 41, see fig. 1).

The present work, painted on April 6, 1947, maintains the sober palette of the war years while abandoning the array of objects✨ that referred indirectly to the dire situation in Paris during the German occupation. The simple kitchen table, similar to those used in many of Cézanne’s still-lifes (see fig. 2),☂ is seen simultaneously from below, left and right. This multiplicity of views is an extreme development of the simultaneous presentation of different aspect of an object that first occured in the Cubist years. The top of the table barely registers, just enough to support the two objects silhouetted against the bare wall. Though drawn from his earlier Cubist aesthetic of semi-transparent and overlapping planes, the table and objects here are solid and sculptural. Picasso does, however, take enormous liberties with the forms by pulling and twisting the surface planes, thereby creating a combination of interlocking shapes and forms that is fascinating and pleasing to the eye.

Picasso had dated this work 6.4.47 on the reverse of the canvas, but this inscription is no longer visible.

This work as been requested for the upcoming exhibition, Picasso, War and Peace, to be held a💖t the Museu Picasso in Barcelon🍌a from May 25 until September 26, 2004