Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973)
Figuras, 1967
Brush and pen and India ink on paper laid on card
Signed “Picasso” and dated “2.6.67” (June 2, 1967)
19.5 × 23.9 in. (49.5 × 60.7 cm)
Price: On Request
About the Work
Executed on June 2, 1967, Figuras is a richly worked example of Pablo Picasso’s late draftsmanship, bringing together several of the figurative themes that occupied the artist throughout his career.
The composition is animated by a remarkable variety of mark-making. Picasso moves between the elegant, economical contours of the female figure at left and the increasingly dense, vigorous passages of ink that define the figures at right. Delicate lines coexist with heavy blacks, cross-hatching and rapid gestural strokes, giving the drawing an extraordinary sense of movement and spontaneity.
The juxtaposition is particularly compelling: the serene classical profile and nude at left contrast dramatically with the darker, more theatrical figures occupying the opposite side of the sheet. It is a composition that rewards close viewing, revealing additional faces, bodies and gestures within Picasso’s overlapping network of lines.
By the late 1960s, Picasso was working with extraordinary freedom, revisiting subjects that had fascinated him for decades—the artist and model, the nude, spectators, performers and figures drawn from the history of European painting. Rather than simplifying his visual language in old age, he pushed it toward an increasingly energetic and uninhibited form of expression.
Importantly, Figuras is a documented work within the Picasso literature. It was illustrated by Christian Zervos in the monumental catalogue of Picasso’s oeuvre and subsequently recorded and illustrated in The Picasso Project. The work was also exhibited in Germany in 2005.
Provenance
Private Collection, Switzerland; Meridian Gallery, New York; Acquired from the above, December 2004; Private Collection, Miami, FL USA; Private collection, UK
Literature
Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, Paris, 1973, Vol. 27, no. 7, illustrated pl. 4 (with incorrect medium)
The Picasso Project: Picasso’s Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings and Sculpture — The Sixties II, 1964–1967, San Francisco, 2002, p. 348, no. 67-222, illustrated (with incorrect medium)
Exhibited
Pablo Picasso: Einzigartig–Vielfältig, Heidelberg/Rechberghausen, Germany, July–October 2005, p. 52, illustrated
