The Dream by Picasso

The Dream, 1932
Picasso
Oil on canvas 130 x 97cm
Le Reve is famous for its $139 million price tag. And even more famous for its recent run-in with a stray elbow courtesy of a Las Vegas Casino magnate.

Its history is fascinating. The story goes that in 1931 Picasso saw a retrospective of Matisse in Paris. Keeping up with Henri he decided he had to have one.

He set to work on a series of crowd-pleasing, sentimental works that bordered on soft porn, hiding behind distortion as a means to mask his true feelings for his subject. Picasso’s erotic muse was Marie-Thérèse. She was a teenager that Picasso sweet-talked on a street in Paris. Soon they were lovers. And the 45 year old Picasso was walking on air. (Eventually she had his child and his attention drifted, and she killed herself. Did I mention this already?) Anyway, the painting depicts her sitting in a chair asleep, or gratifying herself, head to one side, one tit exposed, a smile on her face. And on one side of her face Picasso painted an upturned penis. His own, right? The retrospective was a hit.

Oscar de la Picasso

Oscar de la Renta’s 2012 collection, chock full of Picasso, Cubism, and Modernism references. Fun to see the clothing side-by-side to pieces of modern art, you can see the inspirations in color, lines, and shapes.

Blue Seated Nude by Pablo Matisse

Blue Seated Nude, 2015
Pablo Matisse
Acrylic on canvas original
(after H. Matisse and P. Picasso)
18 X 24” $575.

This painting pays homage to The Blue Nude by Henri Matisse and Picasso’s portrait of Marie-Therese. By putting these established icons together on one canvas I attempt to explore the dichotomy of stylistic intention behind the work of both artists. H. Matisse characteristically focused on simple, natural, organic shapes. Whereas Picasso, true to his Cubist ideology, has focused on complex machine-age geometric patterns to express the personality of his young mistress.

For sales via paypal contact dane.lachiusa@yahoo.com

 

The Making of Blue Seated Woman by Pablo Matisse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Henri Matisse worked with an enormous pair of scissors to cut out the shapes for his Jazz series. For me the most daunting task of creating this hybrid of Matisse’s Blue Nude and Picasso’s portrait of Marie-Therese was attempting to graphically assimilate something created in another medium. There is this intangible frenetic energy you get from viewing Matisse’s originals, and the spontaneity of cutting shapes out of paper is not something you can duplicate in a painting, I don’t think.

 

Blue Nude

Blue nude, 1952
Henri Matisse
Gouache and cut paper collage

Matisse pieced together this iconic figure from disjointed pieces of blue painted paper. The paper cutouts, allowed the artist “to draw in paper,” or “paint with scissors.” as he described it. This series, which he created after his illness, freed him up to simplify form and combine painting and drawing. During his final years, when illness left him bedridden, the cutouts became his only means of expression, but far from diminishing his creativity he succeeded in creating a new visual language. His cut-outs graced the covers of Verve magazine, and a few years later published Jazz, a limited edition book containing prints of his collages accompanied by his written thoughts.

Seated Woman (Marie-Therese)

Seated woman (Marie-Therese), 1937
Pablo Picasso
Oil on canvas

Picasso painted this the same year as Guernica. It was a prolific year for him, to say the least. The influence of his young muse had reinvigorated him. Marie-Therese was 17. They even had a daughter together. He was still married to Olga. When Picasso fell in love with another mistress, Dora Maar, Marie-Therese teemed with jealousy. Four years after Picasso died in 1977 Marie-Therese hung herself.
Pictured here, in 1937, is his mistress depicted tenderly, but monstrously. Picasso has borrowed patterns from his harlequin series, where he saw himself as a sinister trickster.

Eugenio Recuenco’s homage to Picasso

“Stunning” is how I would describe Eugenio Recuenco’s homage to Picasso photographs. Influenced by fine art, this amazing Spanish fashion photographer and film director creates elaborate handmade sets and portrays imaginary worlds with a spooky gothic vibe that brings his characters to life.
http://www.featureshoot.com/2013/03/clever-homage-to-picasso-fashion-story-photographed-by-eugenio-recuenco/

 

 

Harlequin Sailor, 2015 by Pablo Matisse

Harlequin Sailor, 2015
Pablo Matisse
Acrylic on canvas original
(after H. Matisse and P. Picasso)
16” x 20” $450.

While consciously derivative of Picasso’s Seated Harlequin and Matisse’s Young Sailor, I also borrow from Matisse’s cut-outs with shapes that attempt to camouflage the work’s sexual ambiguity. The male presence of the sailor is seemingly machismo compared to the fanciful decorative frills and patterns of the harlequin costume. The familiar argyle pattern motif serves as the focal point of this hybrid painting, symbolic of clowns and acrobats of Picasso’s time. –Pablo Matisse

Contact for sales or interest: dane.lachiusa at yahoo dot com

 

The Making of The Harlequin Sailor by Pablo Matisse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My decision to pair Matisse’s young sailor with Picasso’s seated harlequin was quite arbitrary. The whole process is an experiment, juxtaposing motifs from everyone’s favorite modern masters. Rather than trace the originals I begin by drawing out a charcoal outline. I am hoping that the result feels organic, hoping that some inexactitude
will add to the charm. At this stage the painting looks very flat and posterized. Where are we? We are not sitting at a table across from the subject in the cafe that Picasso imagined his subject. As I bring the painting to its conclusion my introduction of cut-out shapes from Matisse’s toolbox further pushes this idea of multiple temporalities.

I’m sure the nature of my work invites comparison. In which case, we all know who would win, and isn’t me. Of course, my intention is not the same. As an appropriation artist I’m merely exploring the idiom. It is a fun endeavor to build castles in Spain, as it were, to see what might have happened if these two art rivals had worked side by side on the same canvas and what they might have made of it. I’m sure what they might have made of it is art beyond my limited scope, of course. But I hope you enjoy my attempt to reference both styles, “North and South Poles”, just the same. –Pablo Matisse

 

Seated Harlequin by Pablo Picasso

Seated Harlequin, 1901
Pablo Picasso
Oil on canvas

This gloomy painting takes on cool blue tones characteristic of Picasso’s early Blue Period works and a subject matter emblematic of his Rose Period. By 1905, clowns and circus folk were a common theme in his work. Picasso’s use of broad, flat planes of color and thick outlined shapes seem to hint at a Fauvist influence. Was Picasso borrowing from Matisse already without having been formally introduced? Most often Picasso’s works from this period portray impoverished street people as he attempted to portray the real Paris, perhaps. It is suggested that the mood of this picture, and others at the time, reflect his emotional state after the suicide of his friend and fellow artist Casagemas.