Details

Provenance

Perls Galleries, New York Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1989

Literature

Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, œuvres de 1923 à 1925 , Paris, 1952, vol. V, no. 273, illustrated pl. 129 Josep Palau i Fabre, Picasso: From the Ballets to Drama (1917-1926) , Barcelona, 1999, no. 1469, illustrated p. 413 Catalogue Note Depicting three nude bathers on a beach, Trois baigneuses was painted at Juan-les-Pins, where Picasso spent the summer of 1924 with his wife Olga and their son Paulo. It belongs to a group of smaller-scale paintings dating from this summer, in which Picasso depicted women in a style that combines his neo-Classical nudes and semi-nudes from the early 1920s with a more recent project that preoccupied him throughout 1923 and the early months of 1924: the ballet Mercure , with music by Erik Satie and choreography by Léonide Massine, for which Picasso created stage and costume designs (fig. 1). Palau i Fabre wrote about this group of works: ‘As an echo or prolongation of the ballet Mercure , the artist drew a number of figures based on the principles that emerged from the execution of that project […]. The arabesque, which tends to unite, and the diversity of planes, which tends to fragment, are here combined in both harmony and dissonance. The dynamics inherent to the ballet, on “crashing” against the surface [of] the canvas or the paper, retains all its capricious qualities and attempts to submit to its canons in as unsubmissive a way as possible. This subversive aspect is most visible in Three Bathers [the present work]’ (J. Palau i Fabre, op. cit ., p. 413). Palau i Fabre writes further about the composition of Trois baigneuses : ‘The uniform colour fields, either light or dark, accompanying each of the three bodies do not wholly encompass them, thereby creating what our eyes perceive as a kind of fixed mobility and preventing the composition from becoming wholly intelligible. This echoes in a more accentuated way what he achieved with the stage curtain for Mercure ’ ( ibid ., p. 413).

Catalog summary

Pablo Picasso Trois baigneuses signed Picasso and dated 24 (lower right) oil on canvas 33 by 41cm. 13 by 16 1/8 in. Painted in Juan-les-Pins in the summer 1924. Provenance Perls Galleries, New York Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1989 Literature Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, œuvres de 1923 à 1925 , Paris, 1952, vol. V, no. 273, illustrated pl. 129 Josep Palau i Fabre, Picasso: From the Ballets to Drama (1917-1926) , Barcelona, 1999, no. 1469, illustrated p. 413 Catalogue Note Depicting three nude bathers on a beach, Trois baigneuses was painted at Juan-les-Pins, where Picasso spent the summer of 1924 with his wife Olga and their son Paulo. It belongs to a group of smaller-scale paintings dating from this summer, in which Picasso depicted women in a style that combines his neo-Classical nudes and semi-nudes from the early 1920s with a more recent project that preoccupied him throughout 1923 and the early months of 1924: the ballet Mercure , with music by Erik Satie and choreography by Léonide Massine, for which Picasso created stage and costume designs (fig. 1). Palau i Fabre wrote about this group of works: ‘As an echo or prolongation of the ballet Mercure , the artist drew a number of figures based on the principles that emerged from the execution of that project […]. The arabesque, which tends to unite, and the diversity of planes, which tends to fragment, are here combined in both harmony and dissonance. The dynamics inherent to the ballet, on “crashing” against the surface [of] the canvas or the paper, retains all its capricious qualities and attempts to submit to its canons in as unsubmissive a way as possible. This subversive aspect is most visible in Three Bathers [the present work]’ (J. Palau i Fabre, op. cit ., p. 413). Palau i Fabre writes further about the composition of Trois baigneuses : ‘The uniform colour fields, either light or dark, accompanying each of the three bodies do not wholly encompass them, thereby creating what our eyes perceive as a kind of fixed mobility and preventing the composition from becoming wholly intelligible. This echoes in a more accentuated way what he achieved with the stage curtain for Mercure ’ ( ibid ., p. 413).