Louis Carré & Co., Paris

Arthur Tooth & Sons, London (acquired🌺 from the above in October 1952)

M💜arcel M🎃abille, Brussels (acquired from the above on March 11, 1953)

Private Collection (acquired by descent from the above and sold: Sot🐲heby's, London, December 2, 1986💮, lot 72)

Galerie Jan Krug🐎ier, Geneva (acquired a𓃲t the above sale)

Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, 25e anniversaire, 1953

Paris, Grand Palais, Hommage à Picasso, 1966-67, no. 201 (titled Les trois âges de l'homme)

Humlebaek, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Picasso, 1968, no. 54

Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Hommage à Picasso, 1973, illustrated in the catalogue

Caracas, Museo de Bellas Artes, Cinco siglos de arte frances, 1977, no. 53

Cahiers d'art, Paris, 1940-44, illustrated p. 33

Wilhelm Boeck, Picasso, Stuttgart, 1954, no. 164, illustrated p. 473 (titled Le peintre endormi dans son atelier)

Frank Elgar, Picasso et Léger: Deux Hommes, Deux Mondes, Paris, 1954, illustrated fig. 3 (titled Atelier au faune dormant)

Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, oeuvres de 1942 et 1943, vol. 12, Paris,🍸 1961, nไo. 155, illustrated pl. 80

The Picasso Project, ed., Picasso's Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings and Sculpture. The Nazi Occupation, 1940-1944, San Fra🐈ncisco, 1999, no. 42-164, il♐lustrated p. 166

Brigitte Léal, Christine Piot & Marie-Laure Bernadac, The Ultimate Picasso, New York, 2000, no. 856, illustrated p. 349 (titled The Three Ages of Man)

Michael Fitzgerald, Picasso: The Artist's Studio, New Haven and London, 2001, no. 27, illustrated p. 49 (titled The Three Ages of Man) 

Oil on cradled panel. There is a small area of abrasion to the right of the easel and two tiny, pinpoint losses just below the sleeping man, which are barely perceptible. Under ultra-violet light, there are two minor spots of retouching below the mask. Over all, this work is in very good condition. Colors: There is a bit less red tonality in the flesh than what appears in the catalogue illustration.
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.

Nus masculins, also known as Les trois âges de l'homme, is one of Picasso's rare ensemble pictures of male nudes.  It has long been understood t𝓰hat Picasso's depictions of men ꦉwere veiled self-portraits, and the present work, which is a metaphor for the stages of human development, could very well be intepreted as the artist's  meditation on his own life's progression.  The frivolity of youth, the mannered dedication of adulthood and the abandonment of old-age are all reflected here amidst an artist's studio, where a blank canvas in the background awaits its final composition. 

This emblematic picture was completed in November 1942, two years after the Germans had entered Paris.  Picasso never referred to the war directly in his pictures, but they do reflect the somber mood of their time and Picasso's own reflective mood during one of the most troubling periods in modern history.  Picasso largely devoted himself during this era to the exploration of three major genres of painting: the female nude, the still-life and portraits. The theme of the reclining nude, first seen in a small gouache of a reclining nude painted on January 25, 1941, anticipated L'Aubade and Nu couché, both painted in 1942. His still-life compositions, which fr꧃equently incorporated animal skulls and human skulls, were notable for their austerity and for the dramatic way in which Picasso off💧ered reflections on the gravity of the world situation. More than any other subject, the theme of the seated woman became a vehicle for the expression of a wide range of emotions.

Although his work of the war years varied considerably in stylistic handling, the prevailing mode was planar and angular, a continuing exploration of the fractured planes that had first appeared in his Cubist work of 1908. Nus masculins is an exception, a return to the more classical manner that had emerged in the 1920s and coexisted with the Surrealist mode of the 1930s. As described by Christine Piot: "returning to what was already a familiar theme in two works from 1942 – the sculpting and painting studio – Picasso again depicted the artist with a beard. In a painted wood panel from November 1942 (the present work), he embodied The Three Ages of Man in a single image of three naked men of different generations. Looking toward the future through a picture window, a young boy cheerfully plays with a kind of flute, perhaps an echo of The Pan Pipes (fig. 1) from 1923. Behind him stands a bearded man, holding the mask of a faun – as in the drawing from April 23, 1936. In the foreground a middle-aged man with the build of the man in Picasso's drawings from 1953-54 sleeps stretched out on the floor. A statuette on a stand at the right resembles the one in a drawing of August 4, 1931, but the unfinished canvas on the easel alludes to nothing in the past" (B. Leal, C. Piot & M.-L. Bernadac, The Ultimate Picasso, New York, 2000, p.347).

 

Executed in the middle of the war, the present work may perhaps be seen as Picasso's reassertion of European traditions and values in the midst of devastation. In this singular work, he reconceived an age-old theme with figures that had played significant roles in his own oeuvre. It would be another ten years before his efforts of reinterpretation, as seen in his reprises of Femmes d'Algers and Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, would come into play once again in such a bold m🍨anner.