Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, oeuvres de 1958 et 1959, vol. 18, Paris, 1967, no. 56, illustrated p. 15
The Picasso Project, Picasso's Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings and Sculpture. The Fifties II, 1956-1959, San Francisco, 2000, no. 58-067, 𒆙illustrated p. 191

Fleurs dans un vase is a resounding example of Picasso’s late preoccupation with geometric and linear form.  The still life as an object of meditation is deeply embedded in art historical rhetoric, and its pervasive material presence in the oeuvre of modern masters such as Picasso is a testament to its endurance.  Jean Sutherland Boggs notes that “ever since his commercial efforts to paint flowers at the tender age of nineteen - over half a century earlier - Picasso had on the whole limited the role of flowers to grace notes in his drawings or etchings… Curiously, at the time when Picasso’s future biographer, John Richardson, who has recorded the artist’s indifference to preserving flowers, must have met Picasso, the artist seems to have discovered the virtue of keeping flowers in water… In turning to the simple, and even hackneyed, theme of a bouquet of flowers, Picasso surprisingly made it somewhat larger than life…” (Boggs, Picasso and Things, Cleveland, 1992, pg. 321). 

As a reinterpretation of a familiar theme, the present work explores cubist notions of spatial relationships.  Notable, however, is the point at which this exploration ceases. Whereas the angular surface upon which the bouquet sits probes three-dimensional concepts of representation, the floral arrangement itself is deliberately flat.  This contrast, a bit of otherwise puzzling visual trickery, surrenders to the expressive capabilities of radiant color.  The airy hues of red, yellow, blue, green and orange are infused with vivacious and cheerful values, a welcome burst of visual energy.  Painted in the autumn of his career, Fleurs dans un vase is both🦹 a charming remi🔥nder of Picasso’s ardor for life as well as fitting homage to his influential contributions to Cubism.