Watercolour and pencil on paper

35 × 25 cm. 13 7/8 x 9 7/8 in.

Signed in Spanish on upper right

LITERATURE
1974, Pablo Picasso: Supplément aux Années 1910-1913, vol. 28, Paris, no.9, p.5
1979, Le Cubisme de Picasso: Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, 1907-1916, Neuchâtel, no.405, p.226
1998, Picasso Cubisme 1907-1917, Könemann, Kölin, no.604, p.222
PROVENANCE
Galerie Simon (Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler), Paris
Galerie Flechteim, Berlin and Dusseldorf, acquired from the above in 1911
Previous Collection of Max Leon Flemming, Hamburg, acquired from the above in 1929
Previous Collection of Hugo Perls, New York
18 Nov 1998, Sotheby's New York Auction, Lot 353
Acquired by an Italian collector from the above
4 May 2006, Sotheby's New York Auction, Lot 193
Acquired directly by present important private Asian collector from the above

Note: According to the catalogue Le Cubisme de Picasso: Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, 1907-1916, this work was executed during the artist's stay at Cadaqués in 1910 or while he was in Céret in 1911.

Heralding the Cubist Era
The Muse of Pablo Picasso – Catalane

Pablo Picasso is widely recognized as the unequalled giant of modern art, who at the beginning of the 20th Century together with Marcel Duchamp and Henri Matisse promoted a great revolution in the plastic arts. Indeed, his pioneering Analyti Cubism opened the way for avant-garde portraiture, with countless painting school deeply influenced by this style in the years that followed, launching a “constructionist” wave that forever changed the direction of modern painting.

An important Step in the Rewriting of Life and History

This in and out revolutionary was born in Spain and was taught to paint from a young age by his father Don José who was an academic school painter. Moreover the five years Picasso spent learning painting in Spain from the age of 11, directly influenced the creative style of the artists early blue period (1900-1904) and the painting motifs he embraced to the rest of his career. In 1900, Picasso arrived in Paris where he visited all the main art museums. It was at that time that he found the soft tones of Edgar Degas and exquisite elegance of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres deeply appealing. Moreover, Picasso met the first love of his life, Fernande Olivier, brought warmth into his life, as seen by the warm tones that inform his Rose Period (1904-1906).

In 1907, three years before the appearance of “Catalane,” Picasso he came to realize from African tribal art that the paintings that the true power of Paul Gauguin's paintings came from primitive art forms. It was at this point that he started to highlight thick lines and express a succinct style. In the same year a large “Cezanne Retrospective Exhibition” was held in Paris that directly impacted Picasso's “Les Demoiselles d'Avignon,” widely considered the most influential painting of the 20th Century and the years that followed same the beginning of the “Cubist” revolution which rewrote art history, realizing the artist's transformation from “destruction” to “creation.” It is against this backdrop that “Catalane” was completed in Cadaques, Spain in 1910 or Ceret, France in 1911. This was a period of great creativity in the life of Picasso and a crucial time in his analysis of Cubism, one that gave birth to such classic works as “Girl with Mandolin” (1910). Indeed, the model for “Catalane” was Fernande Olivier, the same muse the artist used for “Girl with Mandolin” and the work was a key prototype in the research the artist undertook for the important piece “Standing Woman” produced in the same period and is important witness to the rewriting of art history. The provenance of the piece is clear and well documented and it appears in the complete works of Pablo Picasso and important painting albums, showcasing for all eternity the important mark this woman made in the life of this master artist.

A Key Revolution in the Building of Spiritual Aesthetics

“I never searched, I only discovered”
——Pablo Picasso

Although “Catalane” has a realist motif, we can still see inklings of the geometric style structure that became so important in this period, particularly the “simultaneous visions” language he developed based on the multiple perspective revolution introduced to graphic painting by Cezanne. In this way, Picasso took images of objects from multiple angles and here combines them in the image of the woman in the painting, so there is a frontal depiction of her face together with her belly from the side and her bottom from the rear. These three distinctive views of the subject are brought together in a brand new body style. This is the most classic deconstructive method employed in earliest Cubist paintings, marking a break with the limits imposed on artists by the traditional perspective approach that had dominated painting in the 500 years since the Italian Renaissance, remedying the long term weakness in two dimensional depictions seeking to portray the volume of three dimensional objects.

At the same time, the solid body of the main figure highlights the outline of a body imbued with great power and a sense of rhythm. Although the hands and feet are depicted in simple terms, the triangular structure gives viewers a direct sense of pure vitality, which a high degree of harmony with the abstract background. This together with the balance between dynamic and static states creates a brand new visual relationship that transcends the bounds of time and space. Picasso used this work to launch a Cubist revolution an while is established the core ideas of Cubism it also became an important formal foundation stone connecting the styles the artist encountered in life. It lso enabled Picasso to reveal a depth of sentiment unmatched by representational painting – one that came from the inspiration of nature.

Freedom and Love That Transcends Time and Space

“Catalane” also demonstrates the way Picasso adopted and transformed the color expression in contemporaneous classics “Le Luxe” and “The Dance” by Henri Matisse. Whereas the latter preferred strong and unrestrained color comparisons, Picasso's use of color shows his reflections on female softness and delicateness, using his unique formal language to depict the familiar shape of his lover. Moreover, the light texture of water colors and litheness of the lines showcase the beautiful unaffected innocence of the artist's lover. Fernande Olivier is wearing a top and hair band adorned with a floral motif, an ingenious echo of the bunch of flowers she is carrying. When contrasted with the deep blue skirt and acid blue background it appears especially warm, completely bereft of the sense of distance that habitually imbues figures in Cubist paintings. The “beauty” of the female body depicted transcends conceptualization and common sensibilities, becoming a standard for the measuring freedom and the self. In this sense, she is a new era “Lady Liberty,” greeting visitors with a victorious bouquet, offering a laurel crown to those seeking to shake off the fetters of tradition. This work exudes a “primitive” power that arouses in people a yearning for their “real self and it is exactly the value and power of this spirit that transcends mainstream works that seek to succeed through a focus on realism, color and form. In a world of ordinariness and impermanence this work is the synthesis of a spiritual force with the power to shake Heaven and Earth and move anyone who sees it.

Price estimate:
HKD: 1,300,000 – 2,000,000
USD: 167,700 – 258,100

Auction Result:
HKD: 1,534,000