Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris
Galeria Sur, Montevideo
Sale: Christie's, New York,♐ November 9, 1999, lot 459

Céret, Musée Municipal d'Art Moderne, n.d.
Naples, Florida, Philharmonic Center for the Arts, n.d. 

The Picasso Project, Picasso's Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings and Sculpture.The Sixties II, 1964-1967, San Francisco, 1997, no. 64-158, illustrated p. 49
Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso: Oeuvres de 1964, vol. 24, Paris, 1971, no. 162, illustrated p. 60

Work is laid down. There is a hard, horizontal crease with associated losses which have been retouched through the center of the sheet. One small retouch at bottom right corner (near chin). Stain at lower right corner. A few small pin-dots of restoration or discoloration appear under UV light. Sheet is slightly time darkened overall. There are small pin-dots of loss at left edge which appear to be inherent to the sheet. A few scattered pin-dots of foxing are also visible in the raking light.
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.

For several months in 1964, Picasso returned to depicting heads of men, smokers and quasi-self-portraits were mainstays of that production.  As Jean Sutherland Boggs has observed, "When in 1964 Spitzer, a Berlin publisher, sent Picasso a packet of reproductions of one of his own paintings of an artist, he proceeded to make variations of it – painting curly-haired painters, bearded painters, clean-shaven painters, painters with square hats, painters with flattened fedoras – some young, some old but all working with manic intensity on their canvases, all surprised by the results. At the same time he was making drawings of the heads of other people with equal fervor. One series was of a man, often smoking (Picasso himself seems to have been an incessant smoker). In drawings of this man Picasso combined particularly brilliant calligraphic motives of different colors to suggest a distraught human being. From this series there is also a deeply melancholy portrait of Jacqueline. But the difference is that these other works do not contain a canvas or a sheet of paper, which seems to provide a resolution – or at least an excuse – for the excitement of the painter" (Jean Sutherland Boggs, The Last Thirty Years, Picasso in Retrospect, 1973, p. 235).