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Estimate: $ 80,000 - $ 120,000
PABLO PICASSO Tête de Femme (Portrait de Jacqueline de Face, II).
Color linoleum cut, 1962. 645x526 mm; 25 1/4x20 3/4 inches, full margins. One of approximately only 20 artist's proofs, aside from the edition of 50. Signed and inscribed "Epreuve d'artiste" in pencil, lower margin. Printed by Arnéra, Vallauris. Published by Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris. A brilliant, richly-inked impression of this large, important print, with vibrant colors.
Among the more than 150 color linoleum cuts that Picasso produced during the 1950s and 1960s, none stand out for their boldness of execution and sheer artistry more than the colorful, semi-abstract portraits of his second wife, Jacqueline Roque (1927-1986). Picasso's adoption of the color linoleum cut medium coincided with his introduction to Jacqueline in the early 1950s; he had tried his hand at a few monochromatic linoleum cuts in the 1930s but never pursued them any further until the mid 1950s.
Abandoned by her father, Jacqueline was 18 years old when her mother died of a stroke. Following a short marriage to an engineer named André Hutin, Jacqueline settled in southern France in the early 1950s and took a job at the Madoura pottery workshop in Vallauris. Picasso met Jacqueline, then 27 years old, in 1953 while embarking on what would become a creative outburst of limited edition pottery at the Madoura workshop. They were married in 1955, following the death of Picasso's first wife, Olga Koklova (see lot 321).
In these color linoleum cut portraits of Jacqueline, Picasso exaggerates her dark eyes, arched eyebrows and high cheekbones. These characteristics became steadfast in his later portraiture. Picasso's series of paintings that derived from Eugène Delacroix's The Women of Algiers was said to be inspired by Roque's beauty. Picasso declared that "Delacroix had already met Jacqueline," reflecting on his painting her into the famous series; similarly inspired was Picasso's portrait of Jacqueline as Lola de Valence, an ode to her beauty playing on Édouard Manet's iconic portrait of the famed Spanish dancer.
Jacqueline's later years with Picasso were fraught with hardship and contention. After his death in 1973 she spent years in litigation with Picasso's mistress François Gilot and his children over his estate. Tragically, she committed suicide 13 years after Picasso's death, on the eve of the opening of an upcoming exhibition of her private collention of Picasso's work in Spain. Bloch 1063; Baer 1280.
