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PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973) Tête de femme signed and dated “14.15.8.69.II Picasso” (upper right);...

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:60,000.00 - 80,000.00 USD
PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973) Tête de femme signed and dated “14.15.8.69.II Picasso” (upper right);...

PABLO PICASSO

(1881-1973)

Tête de femme

signed and dated

“14.15.8.69.II Picasso” (upper right); dated “Le 14.8.69./II /15.8.69.”

(on the reverse)

black and blue felt-tip pen on paper

21.3 x 16.5 cm (8 3⁄8 x 6 1⁄2 in.)

drawn in August 1969

Estimate: £42,000–55,000

$60,000–80,000




Provenance

Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris (acquired from the artist)

Edwin Bachmann, New York

Gertrude Stein Gallery, New York

Acquired by the present owner in 1973




Literature

Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, Paris, 1983, vol. 31
(Oeuvres de 1969), no. 378 (illustrated, pl. 109)

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This intense portrait, probably based on the features of Jacqueline Roque, is typical of the direct, penetrating gaze of many of Picasso’s late portraits, seen nowhere more movingly than in the celebrated Autoportrait, 1972 (Zervos vol. 33, no. 435). In this work the cross-hatching that he has used is clearly informed by Picasso’s prolific printmaking, particularly his etching techniques where the hatching creates great tonal depth.
This work was executed on two days, the 14thand 15th of August, 1969. During this time Picasso often worked on drawings over extended periods, adding the hatching on subsequent days, after first having put down the basic image with the greatest economy of means. He was very meticulous when it came to dating his works, and with good reason.
He believed that the historian would be able to “learn more about man in general through the study of creative man… I often think about such a science…and I want to leave to posterity a documentation that will be as complete as possible” (Pablo Picasso quoted in Picasso and Portraiture, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1996, p. 470).