Picasso Et Les Fondeurs

Transcript

PICASSO ET LES FONDEURS : UN ÉTAT DES LIEUX Diana Widmaier Picasso • Colloque Picasso Sculptures • 25 mars 2016 J aimé Sabartés n’aurait cessé de répéter à Picasso : « Le plâtre est périssable… Il te faut du solide. Le bronze est pour toujours1. » Si l’idée que Picasso ne s’intéressait pas à la fabrication de ses bronzes, lui aurait répondu : «… vous êtes trop difficile. Vous au profit de ses plâtres, est largement répandue, on discutez chaque petit détail qui n’est pas exactement sait néanmoins aujourd’hui que plus d’un millier de comme vous le voudriez. De plus, vos pièces pré- sculptures ont été éditées en bronze. Picasso réa- sentent d’énormes difficultés techniques. Ce sont des lisa très vite les possibilités offertes par ce matériau, casse-tête chinois4 ». à savoir son immuabilité, sa patine et ses effets, sa Les témoignages de ses contemporains sur le sujet capacité, dans le cas de ses assemblages, à conserver sont peu nombreux, et les archives des fondeurs sont l’empreinte des divers matériaux utilisés, sa faculté à souvent lacunaires, soit perdues, brûlées, voire dissi- préserver les différents états du processus créatif et la mulées. Cependant, j’ai pu collecter, dans le cadre de possibilité de les peindre. mes recherches sur les sculptures, une documentation importante basée sur l’étude des œuvres et de leur Picasso a gardé de nombreux plâtres de fonderie, histoire. L’ accès à des fonds d’archives inédits m’a per- et demandait à ses fondeurs le retour de l’original mis, par recoupements avec d’autres fonds, de mettre avec un ou plusieurs exemplaires en bronze. Rares en perspective l’attention de l’artiste quant à la fabri- sont les artistes faisant leurs propres fontes. Picasso cation de ses tirages en bronze et d’établir un état des fit appel à plusieurs fondeurs : Florentin Godard, la lieux sur Picasso et les fondeurs. Maison Valsuani, Eugène et Georges Rudier, F. Guastini, Émile Robecchi, Désiré et Émile Godard et la Ambroise Vollard (1866-1939), un des premiers mar- fonderie Susse, ainsi que la fonderie de Coubertin où chands de Picasso, est considéré comme le premier des fontes posthumes ont été coulées. Il les choisis- éditeur de ses bronzes. Les archives partielles conser- sait selon ses besoins, les époques, le type d’œuvres vées à la documentation du musée d’Orsay ainsi que à réaliser et le prix, mais aussi selon les marchands les différents fonds privés5 ne permettent pas d’iden- ou collectionneurs à l’origine des éditions : Ambroise tifier l’ensemble des fontes qu’il fit à partir des cinq Vollard, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Heinz Berggruen, sculptures originales achetées à Picasso, probable- Lionel Prejger et Raoul Pellequer. ment en septembre 1910. Vollard ne signait pas de Interrogée sur sa visite avec Picasso à la fonderie contrat avec ses artistes, mais Picasso lui avait donné Valsuani à la fin des années 1940 , Françoise Gilot a l’autorisation de reproduire ses œuvres à plusieurs insisté sur le fait que Picasso s’amusait à lancer des exemplaires. Le marchand éditait les sculptures au défis aux chefs d’atelier tout en gardant le contrôle cas par cas pour des clients potentiels, pour des rai- sur ses fontes . C’est le cas de l’Homme au mouton, sons financières. Chaque bronze était signé, mais ne véritable prouesse technique, pour lequel Valsuani portait ni numérotation ni cachet de fondeur. Aussi 2 3 seuls une documentation précise sur la provenance supposée des « fontes Vollard », un recoupement Colloque Picasso Sculptures Diana Widmaier Picasso : Picasso et les fondeurs 1 des informations, ainsi qu’une analyse technique de la matière6 permettront de déterminer le nombre de sculptures en bronze réalisées. Vollard travaillait avec plusieurs fonderies de qua- des exemplaires du Fou (1905), de la Tête de Fernande lité dont celle de Florentin Godard qui édita le Fou (1906) et de sa version cubiste de 1909. (1905), la Tête de Fernande (1906), la Femme age- Par ailleurs, l’étude des carnets de comptes de Flo- nouillée se coiffant (1906), la Tête d’homme (1906) et rentin Godard fournit une autre information inédite, la Tête de Fernande (1909) 7. Vollard aurait conservé relative à la fonte du Verre d’absinthe, édité par le mar- les modèles originaux des sculptures qu’il a fait éditer chand Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (ill. 1). Une entrée jusqu’à sa mort en 1939. Des tirages numérotés ont datée du 16 avril 1914, et indiquant « Kannweiller été réalisés par la suite avec l’autorisation de Picasso . [sic] 6 bronzes verre 440 »14, laisse supposer qu’il 8 s’agit de la date de fonte des six Verre d’absinthe, tout La découverte des archives de Florentin Godard en confirmant que l’édition en bronze de cette sculp- (1877-1956) a permis une avancée non négligeable ture est bien l’œuvre de Florentin Godard15, Picasso dans la datation des bronzes édités par Vollard, même ayant procédé à l’assemblage de la cuillère de chacun s’il convient de les considérer avec précaution10. En des six exemplaires en bronze de la sculpture. 9 effet, les registres Vollard révèlent que ce dernier a commandé onze bronzes à Godard, entre 1921 et À partir de la seconde moitié des années 1930, Picasso 1939, tandis que les livres de comptes Godard font travaille avec la fonderie Valsuani. La majorité des état de trente et une fontes Picasso entre le 15 avril bronzes est numérotée et porte le cachet de la fonde- 1926 et le 19 décembre 1928. rie. Ouverte par Claude Valsuani (?-1923) en 1908, puis Si le nom de Vollard apparaît bien les 9 et 29 décembre reprise par son fils Marcel Valsuani en 1924, la fonderie 1910 dans les archives Florentin Godard , il faudra ferme officiellement en mai 1940 avec la mobilisation attendre le 28 juin 1913 pour qu’il soit associé à celui de ce dernier, qui annonce sa réouverture en 194816. Elle de Picasso12. On peut cependant suggérer qu’au moins sera ensuite cédée à Jacques Sokolowski en 1973. Les une Tête de Fernande (1909) a été fondue pour l’exposi- fontes à la cire de Valsuani sont réputées d’une grande tion « Pablo Picasso », organisée à la galerie Ambroise finesse et d’une grande qualité technique, attirant les plus Vollard à Paris, du 20 décembre 1910 à février 191113. grands artistes du début du XXe siècle, tels que Matisse. L’ hypothèse selon laquelle Vollard aurait fait fondre Le fonds d’Anne Demeurisse, la veuve de Jacques Soko- plusieurs sculptures entre le 9 et le 29 décembre 1910 lowski, partiellement déposé au musée d’Orsay17, trois est corroborée par une photographie de Picasso prise carnets de commandes inédits récupérés lors du rachat au début de l’année 1911 dans son atelier, entouré de la fonderie en 198118, ainsi qu’un carnet de livraisons 11 tenu par le directeur technique de la fonderie, Antoine Tamburro19, mettent au jour de nouvelles informations sur l’activité de la fonderie Valsuani. Un inventaire des peintures et des sculptures dressé au Colloque Picasso Sculptures Diana Widmaier Picasso : Picasso et les fondeurs 2 ture, signant parfois de son propre nom31. Une partie des archives de la fonderie a été brûlée par la veuve d’Eugène, suivant ses vœux, mais il existe toutefois un fonds Rudier au musée Rodin, à Paris, ainsi que château de Boisgeloup le 3 novembre 1935 fait état de quelques archives privées. plusieurs sculptures en bronze alors que la période La première sculpture de Picasso, Femme assise (1902), Boisgeloup est généralement associée à ses plâtres est fondue chez Rudier les 30 octobre et 16 novembre monumentaux. Un carnet de commandes de la fonderie 1962 pour le marchand Heinz Berggruen, dans une Valsuani, indiquant deux fontes le 6 mai 1935, confirme édition numérotée de 0 à 12/1232. Certains numéros ce constat21. Bien qu’il soit difficile d’identifier les sculp- portent la marque « A. Rudier », tandis que d’autres tures du fait de leurs dénominations – un « sujet » ou portent la marque « G. Rudier » une « statuette » –, les archives nous confirment que des archives indiquent que « 6 petites femmes assises » bronzes étaient déjà édités par Valsuani dans les années ont été coulées le 28 mars 194034. Rien ne garantit 193022 et ce jusqu’en 1972-197323. qu’il s’agisse bien de la Femme assise de 1902, mais En 1937, à l’occasion de l’Exposition internationale des cette entrée pourrait correspondre soit à la série de arts et techniques dans la vie moderne, cinq sculptures bronzes lettrés35, soit à une série sans inscription dont de Picasso sont présentées au pavillon espagnol, en un bronze fut exposé pour la première fois en 1942 à même temps que Guernica. Issus d’une commande du la Buchholz Gallery (Curt Valentin) à New York36. gouvernement espagnol à Picasso, pour laquelle l’artiste Pendant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, l’activité des reçoit 500 000 francs, trois bustes de Marie-Thérèse24 fonderies d’art est en baisse, les ouvriers étant mobi- et La Femme au vase sont tirés en ciment pour l’expo- lisés ou déportés. Certaines grandes maisons se sition . C’est le mouleur Renucci qui facture, le 30 avril voient dans l’obligation de fermer, par suite de la loi 1937, les modèles en plâtres . Un « sujet » fondu en sur la mobilisation des matériaux non ferreux du 10 juillet 193728 chez Valsuani peut être la Baigneuse29, la novembre 1941. Alors que la fonderie Valsuani ferme seule exposée en bronze, même si rien ne le confirme ses portes, la fonderie Rudier ne semble pas en subir car d’autres fontes sont éditées la même année (ill. 2). les conséquences, et des fondeurs tels que Guastini et 20 25 26 27 . Par ailleurs, les 33 Robecchi parviennent à maintenir une activité relative. Cette Exposition internationale de 1937 met à l’hon- Des plâtres de Picasso sont notamment fondus chez neur le fondeur Eugène Rudier (1875-1952), qui a Émile Robecchi37 au moins jusqu’en 194238. Les plâtres repris l’activité de son père, Alexis Rudier (?-1897)30. de Boisgeloup39 tirés en exemplaires uniques en bronze Spécialisé dans la fonte au sable, il va asseoir sa répu- et portant tous le cachet : « CIRE/E. ROBECCHI/PER- tation en travaillant pour Rodin à partir de 1902, DUE », sont photographiés par Brassaï et reproduits par puis pour le sculpteur allemand Arno Breker durant Kahnweiler dans Les Sculptures de Picasso de 194940. la Seconde Guerre mondiale. À sa mort, en 1952, son neveu, Georges Rudier (1905-1994), reprend de manière abusive la fonderie ainsi que sa signa- Colloque Picasso Sculptures Diana Widmaier Picasso : Picasso et les fondeurs 3 Picasso travaille quelque temps avec le fondeur F. Guastini, dont le petit atelier de Courbevoie est spécialisé dans la fonte à la cire perdue. Sollicité par l’artiste dès fin avril 1940, une lettre confirme que Guastini Désiré Godard (1886-1957) crée en mars 1918 les commence à travailler pour Picasso à cette époque. « Établissements Désiré Godard & Cie. » avec un Et dès le 25 mai, Guastini invite Picasso à plusieurs associé. La fonderie sera reprise à sa mort par son reprises à venir « retoucher » ses cires. Le fondeur est fils, Émile Godard (1911- ?). Ce dernier pratique la prié, par le biais de Kahnweiler, le 31 mai, de « procé- fonte au sable, et débute, en 1962, une activité de der à la fonte, sans aucune retouche, et de surveiller fonte à la cire perdue46. Les bronzes sont signés : le travail », Picasso ne pouvant venir le faire41. Même « E. Godard Fond Paris » ou portent le cachet : « E. si à notre connaissance il n’y a pas d’exemple de cire GODARD CIRE PERDUE » ou « E. GODARD CIRE retouchée par Picasso, cette correspondance conser- PERDUE MALAKOFF » 47. La correspondance Sabartés vée au musée Picasso à Paris témoigne d’une véritable montre qu’Émile travaille avec Picasso principalement collaboration entre l’artiste et le fondeur. au début des années 195048. Il exécute de grosses Les témoignages sur les fontes pendant l’Occupation pièces comme la Tête pour Femme à la robe longue49 sont rares, on connaît cependant l’histoire de Dante et plus d’une centaine d’éditions en bronze ayant la Canestri traversant en charrette Paris pour protéger particularité de n’être tirées qu’en deux exemplaires les sculptures de Picasso qui n’avaient pas été récupé- comme cela semble avoir été entendu entre Picasso rées chez Valsuani en 1940 . Selon les archives Alfred et Kahnweiler : un exemplaire non numéroté – impli- H. Baar43, il s’agissait des bronzes certainement desti- citement le ½ – destiné à l’artiste et un exemplaire nés à l’exposition du Museum of Modern Art, à New numéroté 2/2 destiné à la galerie Louise Leiris50. York, « Picasso : Forty Years of his Art » . En effet, En quête de renouvellement, Picasso n’hésitait pas un carnet des archives Valsuani mentionne une com- aussi à visiter des fonderies moins connues ou à confier mande le 26 mai 1939 d’un « Coq », « d’une Statuette ses sculptures à des fondeurs moins importants com- debout » et de « 5 petits modèles ». Si les sculptures mercialement51. C’est le cas de l’artiste-fondeur et ami n’ont jamais été envoyées aux États-Unis, ce carnet Mario Busato (1902-1974) qui a fondu pour Picasso confirme que les œuvres ont bien été fondues . une épreuve de la Main (de Dora Maar) 52 vers 1954- 42 44 45 1955, et une Femme53. D’après son fils Gualtiero, il À la reprise d’activité des fonderies à la fin des années aurait peut-être fondu une ou deux autres œuvres54. 1940, et au fur et à mesure que le rythme des fontes s’accélère pour répondre à la demande d’un marché Ainsi, il n’y a pas de règle dans l’édition d’une sculp- en pleine expansion dans les années 1950 et 1960, les ture en fonte chez Picasso. Les exemplaires peuvent fonderies Valsuani et Godard se distinguent des autres. être fondus tous ensemble ou à la demande. À ce titre, quelques cas sont particulièrement intéressants. À la fin des années 1940, Picasso réalise une série de vingt-quatre petites Femmes debout55, généralement Colloque Picasso Sculptures Diana Widmaier Picasso : Picasso et les fondeurs 4 pouvait faire refaire la patine s’il la jugeait mauvaise. Il y a cependant de grandes variations de couleur dans les patines de ses bronzes. Par exemple, les fontes « Vollard » tirent vers le noir tandis que les patines associée à la Main avec manche . Largement diffusées, de Florentin Godard sont plus opaques que celles de elles répondent à l’accélération du marché de l’art. On la fonderie Valsuani. En 1959, lorsque le marchand sait grâce aux archives Valsuani et aux recoupements Heinz Berggruen lui demande l’autorisation de retirer avec certains numéros d’inventaire de la galerie Louise la Tête de Fernande (1909) 65, il choisit Valsuani et une Leiris, que les bronzes ont été fondus « à la demande » patine foncée66. Picasso semble ainsi avoir été parti- entre 1948 et 1954, voire avant ou après pour certains57. culièrement sensible aux effets de changements de La fonte du Coq de 1931-1932 est un cas particulier. couleur par oxydation, l’anecdote de l’artiste urinant Un carnet de commandes montre qu’un bronze est sur sa sculpture illustrant à merveille cette recherche. fondu en 1939 chez Valsuani, d’après le plâtre original. Une expérimentation qu’il avait d’ailleurs déjà utilisée Avec l’accord de Picasso, la galerie Louise Leiris réalise dans le domaine de la gravure (ill. 3). 56 58 une seconde édition de six exemplaires entre 1953 et au moins jusqu’en 195559. Entre-temps, Sabartés précise à Ainsi, les divers exemples exposés aujourd’hui rendent Picasso que le plâtre original a subi des avaries : il man- compte de l’intérêt de Picasso quant à la fonte en quait les deux plumes de la queue du coq . L’ artiste bronze de ses sculptures, mais aussi de son implica- fait alors un nouveau plâtre de travail réalisé d’après un tion quant aux choix des œuvres à éditer, comme le moulage en gélatine du bronze non numéroté. confirme une lettre de Kahnweiler à Picasso, datée Il convient enfin de s’intéresser à la sculpture Tête du 14 mars 1956, qui prouve que la décision finale qui a été donnée à fondre revient toujours à l’artiste67. Il reste encore à exploiter à deux fondeurs différents. La fonderie Susse a été de nombreux documents et de nombreuses pistes et choisie pour fondre deux exemplaires en 195862, alors l’on ne peut que souhaiter – rêver – que de nouveaux que deux autres exemplaires ont été tirés par Valsuani fonds d’archives surgissent. 60 de femme (Dora Maar) 61 entre 1950 et 1956 . 63 L’ étude approfondie des fontes de Picasso témoigne de l’attention particulière qu’il portait à la patine de ses bronzes. Il privilégiait un effet brut, un jeu sur la « non-patine » qui laissait voir les aspérités du matériau. Il aimait « que ça fasse comme s’il n’y avait pas de patine, car souvent elles sont trop épaisses, trop dorées, vertes ou noires, ou trop exagérées au risque de “défigurer” la sculpture64 ». Bien que nous n’ayons aucun témoignage sur le choix des patines chez Picasso, on sait grâce aux archives des fondeurs qu’il Colloque Picasso Sculptures Diana Widmaier Picasso : Picasso et les fondeurs 5 FIG. 3  La chat Paris,, 1941, Bronze, Fonte avant 1944 45 x 75 x 26 cm Paris, musée Picasso. MP324 © RMN-Grand Palais (musée Picasso de Paris)/Mathieu Rabeau © Succession Picasso, 2016 FIG. 1 PABLO PICASSO Verre d’absinthe, Paris, Printemps 1914 Bronze peint et sablé, 21,5 x 16,5 x 6,5 cm Musée national d’art moderne, Paris. AM1984-629 © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais/ Philippe Migeat © Succession Picasso, 2016 FIG. 2  PABLO PICASSO Baigneuse Boisgeloup, 1931 Bronze, Fonte Valsuani, 1937 ?], 70 x 40,2 x 31,5 cm Musée Picasso, Paris. MP289 © RMN-Grand Palais (musée Picasso de Paris)/Adrien Didierjean/ Mathieu Rabeau © Succession Picasso, 2016 Colloque Picasso Sculptures Diana Widmaier Picasso : Picasso et les fondeurs 6 NOTES 1. Brassaï, Conversations avec Picasso, Paris, Gallimard, 1964 (éd. 1997), p. 77. 2. Françoise Gilot et Carlton Lake, Vivre avec Picasso, Paris, 10-18, 1964 (éd. 2006), p. 309-313. 3. Entretien de l’auteure avec Françoise Gilot, New York, 5 février 2016. 4. Françoise Gilot et Carlton Lake, op. cit., p. 310. 5. Une copie des archives Vollard du musée d’Orsay est conservée également au J. Paul Getty Museum. Il existe un livre de comptes de 1922 dans un fonds privé, ainsi qu’un autre fonds en cours d’étude, qui sont incomplets : il manque notamment les livres de comptes de 1908 à 1921. 5. Voir à ce sujet les recherches de Francesca Casadio, conservatrice scientifique à l’Art Institute of Chicago. 7. Il s’agit de fontes au sable, alors qu’une édition de cinq exemplaires de Femme agenouillée se coiffant (1906) a été réalisée par la fonderie Valsuani, réputée pour ses fontes à la cire perdue. Archives privées, Georges Pellequer. 8. En 1959 et 1960, Heinz Berggruen fait éditer successivement la Tête de Fernande (1906) et la Tête de Fernande cubiste (1909), toutes deux en neuf exemplaires, à la fonderie Valsuani. En 1968, Raoul Pellequer, frère de Max Pellequer, demande à la fonderie Valsuani de réaliser, avec l’autorisation de Picasso, dix tirages supplémentaires de Femme agenouillée se coiffant, d’après l’original en plâtre, numérotés mais non signés. 9. Pratiquant la fonte au sable, Florentin Godard est réputé pour la qualité de ses patines (les patines des fontes Vollard/ Picasso sont souvent très foncées), et connu pour n’avoir employé qu’un seul ouvrier. Toutefois, un carnet d’adresses dans ses archives montre qu’il lui était possible de sous-traiter certaines tâches. 10. Voir à ce sujet les premières conclusions de l’auteure après l’étude de ce fonds d’archives : Diana Widmaier Picasso, « Ambroise Vollard et les sculptures de Picasso », in cat. exp. De Cézanne à Picasso : Chefs-d’œuvre de la galerie Vollard, Paris, musée d’Orsay, Réunion des musées nationaux, 2007, p. 195-201. 11. Livre de comptes 4, 19/11/1910 2/07/1914, p. 23. 12. Livre de comptes 4, p. 75 ; Livre de comptes 5, 1/07/1920-29/12/1928, p. 142 et 154. 13. Hypothèse initialement avancée par Valerie J. Fletcher, « Process and Technique in Picasso’s Head of a Woman (Fernande) », in cat. exp. Picasso : The Cubist Portraits of Fernande Olivier, Washington, National Gallery of Art, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2003, p. 181. Elle suggère que deux bronzes ont pu être fondus au même moment, l’un pour l’artiste, l’autre pour l’exposition de la galerie Vollard. 14. Livre de comptes 4, p. 85. 15. La correspondance de Kahnweiler avec le Dr. Kramar, qui indique que Picasso devait avoir reçu les six exemplaires au cours du printemps et qu’il avait fini de les décorer en juin, semble corroborer cette hypothèse. Voir à ce sujet Luise Mahler, Virginie Perdrisot et Rebecca Lowery, « Picasso Sculpture : A Documentary Chronology, 1902-1973 », in cat. exp. Picasso Sculpture, New York, The Museum of Modern Art, 2015, p. 79. 16. Série E13, Dossier Fondeurs, Archives Musée national Picasso-Paris. 17. Ce fonds donne essentiellement des informations sur la fonderie à partir du moment où elle a été rachetée par Jacques Sokolowski en 1973. Picasso y est très peu évoqué, si ce n’est quand il s’agit d’Antoine Tamburro. 21. Carnet de commandes, 1930-fin mai 1958, p. 136. 22. Élisabeth Lebon, Dictionnaire des fondeurs de bronze d’art : France 1890-1950, Perth, Marjon, 2003. 23. La fonderie Valsuani éditera les deux dernières fontes de Picasso en 19721973 : deux exemplaires de Tête de femme (Marie-Thérèse) (Boisgeloup, 1931, SP 132) et La Femme au vase (Boisgeloup, 1933, SP 135). 24. Boisgeloup, 1931-1932, SP 133, 132 et 131. 25. Boisgeloup, 1933, SP 135. 26. Voir à ce sujet les recherches de Carmen Gimenez et de Catherine B. Freedman. 27. Série E13, Dossier Fondeurs, Archives Musée national Picasso-Paris. 28. Carnet, juin 1924-septembre 1945, Archives Valsuani/Fonderies de Chevreuse. 29. Boisgeloup, 1931, SP 8. 30. Il conserve sa marque : « A. Rudier. Fondeur. Paris », à graphie variable. 31. Les fontes Rudier ne sont pas systématiquement numérotées. 32. Aujourd’hui, rien ne vient confirmer que tous les exemplaires ont été fondus. 33. Bien que les numéros 1 à 9/12 portent la marque « A. Rudier », il s’agit soit d’une fonte d’Eugène Rudier – nous ne connaissons pas la date de la fonte – soit une fonte de Georges Rudier. Les numéros 0/12 et 10 à 12/12 portent la marque « G. Rudier » et ont été fondus le 30/10/1962 (0/12 et 10/12) et le 16/11/1962 (11/12 et 12/12) pour le marchand Heinz Berggruen. Classeur bleu, Rudier Registre de fontes, 1957-63, D78, 1962, p. 96 et 100, Archives Musée Rodin, Paris, et Archives privées. 18. Carnet de commandes, 1928-1939 ; Carnet de commandes, début 1930-fin mai 1958 ; Carnet intitulé « Journal des ventes », juin 1924-septembre 1945. 19. Carnet de livraisons, février 1961-janvier 1974, Archives privées. 20. Archives Musée national Picasso-Paris. Colloque Picasso Sculptures Diana Widmaier Picasso : Picasso et les fondeurs 7 NOTES 34. Classeur bleu, Rudier Registre de fontes, 1939-45, D76, 1940, numéro de page illisible car cornée, Archives Musée Rodin, Paris. ou 29 (illisible)/07/1939) », « une Statuette debout (fonte du 25/07/1939) » et « 5 petits modèles (mains) (fonte du 17/07/1939) ». 35. La lettre « A », anciennement collection Jaime Sabartés, est aujourd’hui au Museu Picasso de Barcelone, et la lettre « C » dans une collection particulière. 46. Lettre de Sabartés à Picasso, 24 novembre 1962, Correspondance Sabartés, carton 153, Archives Musée national Picasso-Paris. 36. « Homage to Rodin : European Sculpture of our Time », New York, Buccholz Gallery (Curt Valentin), 10 novembre-5 décembre 1942, cat. no 16. 47. Élisabeth Lebon, op. cit., 2003, p. 163167. 37. Nous disposons de peu d’informations sur Émile Robecchi, si ce n’est qu’il pratiquait la fonte à cire perdue, à Malakoff, et 49. 1943, SP 238, et SP 238A. qu’il fut actif au moins de 1934 à 1959. 38. Correspondance Sabartés, carton 147, Archives musée national Picasso-Paris. 39. SP 110, 111, 112, 115, 142, 143, 154, 155, 223, 230, 234, 235. 40. Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Brassaï, Les Sculptures de Picasso, Paris, Éditions du Chêne, 1949. 41. Série E13, Dossier Fondeurs, Archives Musée national Picasso-Paris. 42. Correspondance Christian Zervos, classeur 177 et Série E13, Dossier Fondeurs, Archives musée Picasso, Paris. Voir Christian Derouet, Zervos et « Cahiers d’art », Paris, Centre Pompidou, 2011, p. 161 à 164. 43. Lettre d’Alfred H. Barr à Picasso, par le bais de Kahnweiler, 12 septembre 1939, Exhibition Files, Archives MoMA, New York. 44. Cette hypothèse a déjà été émise par Michael FitzGerald, Luise Malher et Clare Finn. L’exposition s’est d’abord tenue au MoMA du 15 novembre 1939 au 7 janvier 1940. Dans son avant-propos (p. 6), Alfred H. Barr écrit : « The most serious disappointment caused by the war is the absence of a large and very important group of Picasso’s recent sculpture some of which was being cast especially for the show. » 48. Correspondance Sabartés, carton 150, Archives Musée national Picasso-Paris. 50. Lettre de Kahnweiler à Picasso, 27 décembre 1957, Correspondance Kahnweiler, classeur 71, Archives Musée national Picasso-Paris. 51. Lettre de J. Meunier à Picasso, 18 mai 1961, Série E13, Dossier Fondeurs, Archives Musée national Picasso-Paris. 52. 13/03/1937, SP1 68A. 53. 1946, SP 318. 54. Courrier du 29 juillet 2007 à l’auteure. 55. 1945/1947, SP 303 à 316 et 322 à 331 56. 1947, SP 338. 57. Carnet de commandes, début 1930-fin mai 1958, p. 194, 198, 250 et 255. classeur 147, Archives Musée national Picasso-Paris. 61. 1941, SP 197 62. Le 17/05 et le 28/07/1958, Archives Susse frères. 63. Un exemplaire Valsuani en bronze est exposé à la Maison de la Pensée française, Paris, à l’exposition « Picasso, sculptures, dessins », 1950-1951 et un autre, peutêtre le même, aux expositions de Rome et Milan en 1953. Un autre exemplaire est fondu avant le 10 novembre 1956, destiné au Monument à Apollinaire. Lettre de Sabartés à Picasso, 10 novembre 1956, Correspondance Sabartés, carton 150, Archives Musée national Picasso-Paris. 64. Entretien de l’auteure avec Françoise Gilot, New York, 5 février 2016. 65. SP 24. 66. Heinz Berggruen, J’étais mon meilleur client. Souvenirs d’un marchand, Paris, 1997, p. 99-102. 67. Lettre de Kahnweiler à Picasso, 14 mars 1956, Correspondance Kahnweiler, classeur 71, Archives Musée national Picasso-Paris. 58. 1931-1932, SP 134. 59. Lettre de Kahnweiler à Picasso, 28 juillet 1953, Correspondance Kahnweiler, classeur 71, Archives Musée national Picasso-Paris. Carnet de commande, début 1930-fin mai 1958, p. 269, Archives Valsuani. 60. Lettre de Sabartés à Picasso, 10/02/1953, Correspondance Sabartés, 45. Carnet, début 1930-fin mai 1958, p. 163. Il mentionne une commande le 26/05/1939 pour « un Coq (fonte du 19 Colloque Picasso Sculptures Diana Widmaier Picasso : Picasso et les fondeurs 8 PICASSO’S SCULPTURE HEAD OF A WOMAN (FERNANDE) 1909: A COLLABORATIVE TECHNICAL STUDY Renzo Leonardi • Derek Pullen • Colloque Picasso Sculptures • 25 mars 2016 T he two plaster sculptures that are the main subject of this essay were first exhibited together in October 2003 at the National Gallery, Washington DC. In her seminal essay “Process and Technique in Picas- at an unknown date, (Fletcher suggests “in or soon so’s Head of a Woman (Fernande)” in the catalogue of after September 1910”), that the art dealer Ambroise the exhibition , Dr Valerie Fletcher, chief curator at Vollard purchased the model from Picasso, together the Hirshhorn Museum, qualified her insights into the with the rights of reproduction. sculptures with, “bear in mind that no scientific anal- Even in the absence of detailed documentation, it is yses have been done on any of the works discussed— possible to outline the probable steps by which the perhaps my efforts will engender such examinations original model was transformed into the first bronze. in the near future”. We describe how we accepted her The clay4 model was probably destroyed (washed challenge and, drawing on her initial research, inves- out from a plaster “waste” mold) during the process tigated the two plaster casts and their relationship to of making the master or primary plaster. The mould- the bronzes with the same title. ing and casting of the model in plaster would at this It is not known exactly how many bronzes were cast time have been done by skilled artisans who went to a from Picasso’s original model—we think twenty, maybe sculptor’s studio if a sculpture was not sent directly to more. None of the bronze casts are numbered and pre- a foundry.5 Picasso was almost certainly present when cise records of their manufacture appear not to have the primary plaster sculpture was released from its survived. We do not yet know exactly which foundries waste mould as he told Cooper and Richardson6 he were used nor which bronzes were cast in which found- made alterations to the front of the neck with a knife. ries. The history of the plasters and their relationship to We believe this alteration, made by slicing into the plas- each other and the numerous bronzes has been uncer- ter with a sharp blade, can only be done as smoothly tain and confusing, however we aim to clarify their as it appears here in both casts when the fresh plaster histories through close examination of the sculptures is still damp and has not had time to fully harden. themselves and comparison with some key bronzes. At this stage plaster has the consistency of hard At the end of the summer of 1909, Picasso returned cheese; later, when it has become hard and dry, with Fernande Olivier from Horta de Ebro in Spain instead of carving smoothly it fractures like a brit- to Paris. There, in early autumn, he modelled what tle rock.7 Why Picasso chose to carve this one small today is known as Head of a Woman (Fernande), or area and leave the rest softly modelled remains a simply Fernande. According to his own inscription puzzle. Was it a change of mind or in response to an on the back of a photograph, Picasso modelled the imperfection in the casting?8 sculpture in the studio of his friend, the sculptor Of the two known plasters, the Tate Loan family Manolo (Manuel Hugué). But it was sometime later, plaster was purchased in 1968 from Ernst Beye- 1 2 3 ler who had bought it the same year from Jacques Ulmann. Since 1994 it has been on loan to Tate (UK) from a private collector. The Nasher plaster, now at Colloque Picasso Sculptures Renzo Leonardi : Picasso’s Sculpture Head of a Woman (Fernande) 1909 1 in date, that both had belonged to Vollard and later Jacques Ulmann, and both might have been used for casting Vollard and Berggruen edition bronzes. Heinz Berggruen learned that Jacques Ulmann, a Paristhe Nasher Sculpture Centre in Dallas, comes from ian collector, had several models or plaster casts of Marina Picasso’s portion of the Picasso estate, sold early Picasso sculptures, including Fernande, acquired to Ray and Nancy Nasher through Jan Krugier’s gal- from the Vollard estate. Berggruen asked Picasso in lery in 1987. This plaster has a round—a socle.9 1960 for permission to reproduce additional bronzes The existence of two plasters was hardly known from the plasters using Claude Valsuani’s foundry. before 1986. Since then both plasters have been According to these agreements, Berggruen would cast linked back to the estate of Ambroise Vollard and the nine bronzes: three for Picasso and six for himself.12 collector Jacques Ulmann. Both have been described In an interview with us in 2004, Herr Berggruen not as “Original” although the Nasher with its socle was only confirmed that this was the agreement, but also identified in the 2003 exhibition catalogue by Jeffery that he personally gave Picasso the three bronzes, Weiss as a “working’ model” contemporary in date which are seen in a La Californie studio photograph with the Tate Loan “master”. Both plasters have shel- by Edward Quinn dated 8 September 1960. lac-like coatings that are typically applied to seal the Berggruen also claimed that he never handled the porous surface of raw plaster. The Tate Loan plaster plaster as that was given by Ulmann directly to the is much darker in appearance than the Nasher plaster Valsuani foundry. And that he had never seen a plas- however it is clear from a photograph supplied by Jan ter with a socle. Berggruen said that until we spoke Krugier to Ray Nasher that a thick coating of shellac of it in our interview he did not know that there was was removed from the Nasher plaster before it arrived a plaster with a socle. in Dallas. The differences in appearance and form Valerie Fletcher, in her 2003 article thought that at of the two plasters aroused our suspicions that the some stage both plasters were used to make many Nasher might be a more recent cast. The Nasher plas- moulds for bronze casting based on the many fine ter lacked the patina of use and age apparent on the cut lines that can be seen in both plasters. These she Tate Loan however it is not yet possible to determine correctly identified them as “incisions made when the age of plaster by material analysis so dating must a plaster is prepared for a sand mould or released rely on documentary evidence and close examination from multiple gelatine moulds”. Fletcher examined of differences between the plasters and the bronzes, the Nasher plaster separately from the Tate Loan at which were cast using the plasters as models. In par- the time her essay went to press. She didn’t realize ticular, we address the question of “when did the that these incised cuts are in exactly the same loca- Nasher plaster become part of Picasso’s estate?”. tion in both plasters, because the Nasher plaster is a 10 This question arose in the 1980s after scholars became aware that there was more than one plaster.11 It was assumed that the plaster heads were contemporary Colloque Picasso Sculptures Renzo Leonardi : Picasso’s Sculpture Head of a Woman (Fernande) 1909 2 very late copy of the Tate Loan, and not vice versa. Apart from the socle, which is cast as one with the head, it is an astonishingly exact copy.13 As evidence we see that all the details, including tion to the “Picasso Sculptures” colloquium in April hundreds of tiny air bubbles present in the surface 2016 this scenario was indeed agreed by Christine Piot of the Tate Loan plaster, are faithfully reproduced in who told co-author Leonardi that she had personally the Nasher plaster. However the Nasher plaster has collected the plaster with a socle from Mr Valsuani’s more air bubbles which are not present in the Tate widow in the late 1970s. (Madame Piot confirmed her Loan. These are most easily recognized in the “O” of account speaking from the audience at the colloquium). Picasso’s signature where a much large air bubble, not We can therefore assert with confidence, that the present in the Tate Loan, is found in the Nasher and Nasher plaster with its round socle was cast by the reproduced exactly in the Berggruen bronzes. foundry from a mould taken off the Tate Loan plas- The penultimate stage in the casting of a bronze, ter and that a mould, or moulds, subsequently taken prior to patination, is to “chase” the surface with from the Nasher plaster, were used to cast the nine files and chisels to remove and disguise any traces bronzes of the Berggruen edition. This happened no of bronze feed pipes (runners and risers) or casting earlier than 1960. defects. To do this the craftsperson needs a reference The bronze “Fernandes”, cast by Vollard between model on the bench to ensure an exact match to the 1911 and his death in 1939, and possibly after his sculptor’s original model. If that original model is not death, all used the Tate Loan plaster as a model. available—perhaps it has become too valuable or is To date there are at least twenty unnumbered too fragile to be left around in the workshop—then bronzes, all without foundry stamps, plus the nine a copy, a secondary plaster or “working plaster”, is commissioned by Berggruen, which are clearly num- made. Having a socle means that the working plaster bered and stamped. can be handled and turned at the bench without risk Diana Widmaier Picasso’s research has confirmed of damage to any fine surface detail. We assume that that Vollard had Picasso’s bronzes cast one or two Ulmann left his plaster (later the Tate Loan plaster) at a time. He also seems to have used several found- with the Valsuani foundry long enough for it to make ries and employed both sand cast and lost wax pro- the secondary plaster for casting the Berggruen edi- cesses. The provenance of Vollard’s casts of Fernande tion and as a reference for the chaser. is sometimes uncertain but we thought we might be We speculated that the secondary or working plaster able to correlate the accumulated damages found in might have remained with the foundry unclaimed the Tate Loan plaster with those found or not found until after Picasso’s death and was later retrieved for in the bronzes, and thereby start to put the castings in incorporation in his estate. On the eve of our presenta- date order. On the plaster some of these damages and repairs show more clearly under ultraviolet light. The Tate Loan plaster, which over decades has repeatedly served to provide moulds for bronzes, inevitably suf- Colloque Picasso Sculptures Renzo Leonardi : Picasso’s Sculpture Head of a Woman (Fernande) 1909 3 provides an exceptional technique to study and compare the different casts of the head of Fernande and the original Tate Loan plaster. We could create virtual images of the plaster and a bronze and then compare fered accidental damage at the various foundries used each with the other as measured cross sections (fig. 5). by Vollard. This damage is replicated exactly in the For essential technical assistance, we depended on Nasher plaster. In one of these accidents a small chip the 3D Optical Metrology Laboratory in Trento—part of plaster of a couple of centimetres was lost from of the research institute Fondazione Bruno Kessler.14 the back side of the base of the head. This loss can be It is important to stress that laser scans, which can clearly seen in the Nasher plaster where it is cast as provide precise dimensional and volumetric data, are part of the plaster itself. (This type of detail is impor- of no practical use to make illegitimate copies. They tant in discussing the bronzes because it may help to do not have enough fine detail to deceive anyone. separate bronzes cast before damage to the Tate Loan Up till now we have been able to compare the Tate plaster from those cast after damage.) Loan plaster with the bronzes of the Metropolitan Among the latter are the Berggruen bronzes, cast by Museum and MoMA in New York, with the National Valsuani using the lost wax process. They are by far Gallery and Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, and the most faithful “copies” of the plasters in terms of with several others. Laser scanning enabled us to sharpness of detail and minimal shrinkage. Better identify many subtle differences between the Tate than the Vollard casts, they exactly reproduce the air Loan plaster and the bronzes. The results of the laser bubbles found only in the Nasher plaster. analysis will be discussed in detail, in a dedicated paper elsewhere. But we can say in summary that the Knowing that there were many unmarked bronzes volumetric shrinkage in the bronze-casting process and possibly some unauthorized casts and surmoul- spans from 4% to 11% (which corresponds to a linear ages—bronzes cast from authentic bronzes—we also shrinkage—such as the height—in the range of 1.5% wanted to know how much variation to expect within to 4%). This kind of shrinkage is in line with that a large family of legitimate bronzes—that is bronzes reported in the literature—but perhaps wider than cast from the same parent plaster model. We sought expected—especially for the earlier Vollard bronzes. out better certificated casts of Fernande in various Prior to scanning, a simple visual inspection of the Tate institutions and are immensely grateful for the coop- Loan plaster with an ultraviolet light source had already eration of many collectors, curators and conservators located traces of various accidental damage and losses who gave us access to their collections. of material that the plaster suffered probably during its Until 2011 our examinations were limited to visual use in foundries in casting at least twenty bronzes and comparisons and tracings of the bases of the bronzes the Nasher plaster between 1910 and 1960. and Tate Loan plaster. To progress the study and improve the quality and quantity of our comparisons we adopted laser scanning technology. A 3D laser scan Colloque Picasso Sculptures Renzo Leonardi : Picasso’s Sculpture Head of a Woman (Fernande) 1909 4 A detailed comparison of these bronzes and the Tate Loan plaster may help to establish a production sequence corresponding to the order in which damage appeared in the plaster. We assumed that the An interesting conclusion can be reached here: any early bronzes were cast from a plaster in perfect con- bronze, that exhibits a thin ledge or negligible recess dition; later casts would show traces of the damage must have been cast earlier than 1927, from an as yet accumulated on the plaster. undamaged plaster. At least one other bronze among In this paper we briefly focus on an area of the Tate those known today has a negligible recess at the base: Loan plaster where a significant loss occurred. It is a the one formerly owned by James St. Laurence O’Toole deep recess, a missing chip, at the base edge of the (see the list). This is an indication that this bronze was plaster on its back left side. This recess was origi- cast earlier that 1927. We know that a bronze was nally a thin, vulnerable ledge of plaster that gradually in the hands of the collector Gottlieb Reber at least receded as more plaster broke off during handling to as early as 1924, as it appears in photographs of the reach its current size. The loss has been disguised by Zürich apartment of Reber as pointed out by his grand- subsequent shellac-like varnishes that in normal light son, Christoph Pudelko. He kindly inspected the bronze blend with the rest of the plaster (fig. 4). formerly in the O’Toole collection and concluded, from Let us now examine some of the bronzes. We know some particular details of the interior of the cast he that the bronzes in Paris (Musée Picasso, first owned vividly remembered and had discussed with his grand- by Picasso), in Chicago (Stieglitz) and in Prague (Kra- father (two unperforated internal lugs for fixing), that mar) were cast very early (1910–11). Looking care- the O’Toole bronze is most likely the one owned by his fully at the bases of these early bronzes one can see grandfather. He also found documents showing a long that there is a thin ledge in the area where the plaster business relationship between Reber and O’Toole. With now has a large recess. this observation we believe we have confirmed the We know from the studies of Diana Widmaier Picasso identity of a “lost” Fernande that was purchased from that the bronzes in Palm Beach (Norton) and in the Vollard by Gottlieb Reber before 1924.15 Lauder Collection were probably cast in 1927. What In conclusion we have described the results of looking about the “recess” in their bases? Their recesses are closely at the various forms of a sculpture: from clay, definitely larger than in the early bronze casts. By to plasters, to bronze. We have shown that the rela- 1927 it seems the plaster has been slightly damaged. tionship is rather more than that of identical copies A similar recess appears in many of the bronzes, docu- and that the details and subtle differences between mented up to the 1940s, that we have inspected so far. each of Picasso’s Fernande sculptures are crucial to The deepest recess appears cast in the Nasher plaster their historical context and order of creation. and of course, the Berggruen/Valsuani bronzes. Valerie Fletcher inspired our own project by suggesting that much remains to be revealed by scientific analyses, but if there is one lesson we take from our investigations it is that while science and tech- Colloque Picasso Sculptures Renzo Leonardi : Picasso’s Sculpture Head of a Woman (Fernande) 1909 5 Adam Budak, Lenka Pastyrikova (National Gallery, Prague) Barbara Sommermeyer (Hamburg), Jackie Heuman(SculpCons Ltd, London) Kendra Roth, Lisa Messinger (Metropolitan Museum), Lynda Zyckernology will undoubtedly assist modern research, man, (MoMA, New York), Hana Striecher (Berggruen much remains to be discovered simply by looking Museum), Harry Cooper, Shelly Sturman, Katy May at sculptures very, very closely. (NGA Washington), Valerie Fletcher, Gwynne Ryan, Susan Lake (Hirshhorn) Acknowledgements Equipment, Laser scan, photogrammetry and data elaboration: Erica Nocerino, Fabio Menna, Alessandro Rizzi, We would like to thank the Picasso Administration for Belen Jimenez Fernandez-Palacios (Fondazione Bruno encouraging us to make this presentation. Kessler 3DOM lab Trento, Director Fabio Remondino) Activity from 2003 to 2010 We thank: Ida Baobul (Metropolitan Museum), Christoph Pudelko (Pudelko Galerie Bonn) Lena Wikstrom (Moderna Museet, Stockholm), Joachim Pissarro, Claire Henry, C.C. Marsh, John Elderfield (MoMA New York), Christian Klemm (Kunsthalle, Zürich), Emily Braun (Hunter College), Leonard Lauder and Lynda C. Klich (New York), Kelli Marin (Norton Museum of Art,Palm Beach), JulieAnne Poncet and Ann Eichelberg (Portland Museum of Art, Maine), Anne Skaliks (Dusseldorf, KunstSammlung N-W), Heinz Berggruen, Dieter Scholz, (Berggruen Museum), Jennifer Riley, Pamela Hatchfield (MFA Boston), Diana W. Picasso (DWP Editions, Paris), Hélène Klein (Musée Picasso, Paris), Jeffrey Weiss, Anne Halpern, Lindsay Macdonald, (NGA Washington), Valerie Fletcher (Hirshhorn), D. Chan (Albright-Knox, Buffalo), Kim HaeJin (SFMOMA), Jan Krugier (JK Gallery), Steve Nash, Jed Morse, Carra Henry (Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas) Activity from 2010 to the present (laser scan activity) Kerstin Doble, Phil Monk, Elisabeth McDonald (Tate), Colloque Picasso Sculptures Renzo Leonardi : Picasso’s Sculpture Head of a Woman (Fernande) 1909 6 EDWARD QUINN carved detail of Tate loan. Detail of La Californie studio, 8th September 1960 Edward Quinn photo archives © edwardquinn.com Left: damages on Tate Loan plaster in normal and UV light ; right: location of missing plaster chip, Nasher and Tate loan PABLO PICASSO Tête de femme (Fernande), 1909 Bronze; 40,5 x 23 x 26 cm Paris, musée national Picasso - Paris. MP243 ©RMN-Grand Palais (musée national Picasso - Paris) / Adrien Didierjean © Succession Picasso, 2016 Colloque Picasso Sculptures Renzo Leonardi : Picasso’s Sculpture Head of a Woman (Fernande) 1909 Above: outlines of Tate Loan plaster and Musée Picasso bronze ; Below: Tate Loan plaster and Musée Picasso bronze combined scans 7 NOTES 1. Picasso: The Cubist Portraits of Fernande Olivier. National Gallery Washington DC (October 2003–January 2004) and Nasher Sculpture Centre, Dallas TX (February– May 2004) 2. Diana Widmaier Picasso, “Vollard and the Sculptures of Picasso”, in Cézanne to Picasso; Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde, ed. Rebecca A. Rabinow (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006). 3. John Richardson, A Life of Picasso: The Prodigy, 1881-1906 (New York: Knopf, 2007), 461 no21; Valerie J. Fletcher, “Process and Technique in Picasso’s Head of a Woman (Fernande)”, in Picasso: The Cubist Portraits of Fernande Olivier (exh. cat. Washington, DC: National Gallery Washington DC, 2003), p.168 no 7. 4. It has been assumed that Picasso used clay but there are suggestions in the characteristics of the small pellets and long intervals between modelling and casting that he might have used a wax, oil and clay mixture commercially known as Plasteline or Plasticine. This would have mitigated the urgency of casting a clay model before it dried and cracked. And it was indeed sometime later, at an unknown date (Fletcher suggests in or soon after September 1910) that the art dealer Ambroise Vollard purchased the model from Picasso, together with the rights of reproduction. Circumstantial evidence : Fletcher says Picasso used wax for Head of Jester, 1905; in 1910 Vollard suggests to the arthritic Renoir he use soft wax for sculptures (Vollard correspondence). Picasso almost certainly modelled the Absinthe Glass, 1914 in wax or Plasteline (MoMA website). And in 1915 after a studio visit Aksenov mentions “a cycle of wax heads from 1909. I believe none have survived.” Vollard was to later arrange for the posthumous casting of Degas’s wax sculptures. The small strips, flattened “sausages” on the crown of Fernande’s head are more typical of Colloque Picasso Sculptures wax than clay and faintly retain the fingerprints sometimes found in modelled wax. 5. The same craftsmen are unlikely to have chosen the waste mould technique for a wax or plasteline model. The less destructive piece-mould casting technique would almost certainly have left trace joint lines on the plaster but flexible gelatine moulds were employed for sculptors’ wax models as evidenced by the Hebrard/Degas maquettes. Whichever type of mould was taken off Picasso’s clay or wax model, this mould would have been used to cast a “primary” plaster from which foundries would cast all subsequent bronzes. 6. Elizabeth Cowling and John Golding, Picasso: Sculptor/Painter (exh. cat. London: Tate, 1996), p. 255 and p. 137. 7. Picasso seems to have carved his signature in the plaster, perhaps accentuating one already traced in the clay. The letter P, in particular, has shelling around the edges of the incision, characteristic of carving hardened plaster. 8. Fletcher, “Process and Technique”. Fletcher suggests that there was a significant delay between the modelling of the sculpture and its casting in plaster, during which Picasso’s Cubist aesthetic became more angular. 9. Marina Picasso’s plaster (later Nasher plaster) was listed in the catalogue Pablo Picasso. Werke aus der Sammlung Marina Picasso (Munich: Haus der Kunst, 16 February–20 April 1981), but illustrated with a photograph of a bronze Fernande. We have been unable to determine if the plaster was shown or a bronze.10.Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario 10. Nasher Sculpture Centre archives, Dallas. there were more than two plasters. [Judith Cousin to Mr Wojtas, 16 July 1986: “While we know at present of the existence of 3 plasters, we do not know which one was used for the Vollard edition” (two plasters in the Picasso estate and one in the Tate Loan collection)]. This premature conclusion was based on an interpretation of a remark made by Dominique Bozo, who with Jean Lemaire oversaw the inventories of the Picasso estate. Bozo spoke of an original plaster (plâtre original) and a working plaster (plâtre de travail). At a first glance, it was not clear to Cousins whether Bozo was referring to the same object or to two different items. Cousins herself, however, in her subsequent correspondence related to the plasters, refers to only two plasters; the one in the Picasso estate (inherited by Marina and then, through Jan Krugier, to Nasher, in 1986) and in the Tate Loan collection (through Galerie Beyeler, in 1968). Similarly Diana Widmaier Picasso’s essay “Vollard and the Sculptures of Picasso” in the catalogue Cézanne to Picasso notes that Ulmann had two plasters (note p. 188). 12. Heinz Berggruen’s autobiography Highways & Byways (: Pilkington Press, 1998). 13. Pullen first examined the Nasher plaster at the owner’s home 9 September 2002 and concluded that the socle and head were probably cast as one piece. Mr Nasher encouraged him to pursue further research. 14. Fondazione Bruno Kessler 3DOM lab Trento, director Fabio Remondino. 15. Widmaier Picasso’s Picasso, “Vollard and the Sculptures of Picasso”, p.188 no 37. 11. MoMA NYC archives. Following correspondence between Judith Cousins (MoMA) and Helen Seckel-Klein (Musée Picasso) in 1986, Cousins concluded that Renzo Leonardi : Picasso’s Sculpture Head of a Woman (Fernande) 1909 8 MATÉRIAU, FABRICANTS ET MULTIPLES : UNE ÉTUDE IN SITU DES ÉLÉMENTS DE LA COLLECTION DE SCULPTURES EN BRONZE DU MUSÉE NATIONAL PICASSO-PARIS Francesca Casadio • Introduction par Élisabeth Lebon • Antoine Amarger • Colloque Picasso Sculptures • 25 mars 2016 L du sculpteur mais aussi du mouleur, du fondeur, du Mieux identifier les fondeurs et les fonderies offre éga- ciseleur, du patineur. Ils nécessitent des connaissances lement l’occasion d’affiner la connaissance plus intime complexes que le sculpteur n’accumule quasiment du travail d’un artiste. Il faut d’abord savoir qu’il existe jamais – en tout cas depuis l’Ancien Régime. L’œuvre deux procédés distincts pour obtenir un bronze d’art : sculptée parvenue à un ultime degré d’achèvement en la fonte au sable et la fonte à la cire perdue. Pour le pre- bronze est donc forcément passée successivement entre mier, l’intervention du sculpteur se limite à déposer son plusieurs mains, outre celles de l’artiste. Mais seul le tra- plâtre modèle en fonderie, puis à récupérer le bronze. vail du sculpteur est considéré comme relevant de l’art, C’est alors seulement, s’il accepte l’épreuve, qu’il peut avec le respect que cela induit – dont la conservation donner une indication limitée à la couleur de patine de toutes sortes de documents (correspondances, témoi- à appliquer. Sa présence en fonderie est parfaitement gnages, photographies, etc.). Les mains ouvrières qui inutile puisque le mouleur au sable monte directement ont également œuvré à la réalisation d’un bronze d’art le moule en sable qui servira à la coulée sur le modèle restent en revanche la plupart du temps anonymes, et qui lui a été confié (ou plus généralement sur un plâtre ne laissent que peu ou pas de traces mémorielles. Ces qu’il en aura tiré, afin de préserver le modèle). ouvriers d’art et les procédés qu’ils ont pu proposer et En ce qui concerne la fonte à cire perdue, le modèle appliquer, avec leurs caractéristiques, influent pourtant déposé par le sculpteur est surmoulé en fonderie pour sur l’aboutissement des œuvres. Mieux les connaître obtenir une épreuve similaire en cire. Le démoulage de ne peut qu’enrichir notre façon d’aborder et de com- cette cire, destinée à être remplacée par le bronze, pro- prendre la sculpture en général. Dans le cas particulier voque d’indispensables réparations, ne serait-ce qu’à de Picasso, le nom même des fonderies qui ont travaillé l’endroit des coutures qui apparaissent aux jointures du pour lui nous est parfois inconnu et il faut d’abord cher- moule. La complexité de certains modèles peut égale- cher à les identifier. C’est le cas par exemple pour la ment obliger à les mouler par parties séparées qu’il faut série des Métamorphose de 1928, ou certaines des Tête ensuite réassembler, ce qui augmente l’importance des de femme créées à Boisgeloup au début des années 1930. réparations nécessaires. Le sculpteur est normalement Tenter de rendre une identité, une visibilité à ces acteurs sollicité par le fondeur pour venir effectuer lui-même souvent anonymes que sont les ouvriers du bronze, c’est ces interventions, susceptibles d’impacter l’œuvre. Il travailler à éclairer la jonction entre le monde du travail intervient alors aussi largement qu’il le souhaite, et et le monde de l’art, entre la société et la culture, tenter peut même donner à chaque cire une identité qui per- de replacer l’histoire de l’art dans l’histoire tout court et mette de distinguer l’épreuve qui en sera issue dans la peut modifier notre approche d’une œuvre. série. Si toutefois le sculpteur n’éprouve pas la néces- a réalisation concrète d’une œuvre d’art en bronze met en jeu des savoirs techniques spécifiques : ceux sité d’intervenir en personne, un ouvrier de la fonderie procède aux indispensables réparations des cires. Colloque Picasso Sculptures Francesca Casadio : Matériau, fabricants et multiples 1 laissant aux ouvriers de fonderie, ou à d’autres intermédiaires, une certaine marge d’intervention. Nous savons par exemple que c’est Sabartés qui est en relation avec le fondeur Valsuani pour essayer d’éviter au La connaissance du procédé appliqué pour obtenir un moulage les coupes du modèle original de la Petite bronze permet donc d’ouvrir, ou de fermer, la possibi- fille sautant à la corde comme l’artiste en a, de loin, lité d’une intervention du sculpteur après le dépôt du manifesté le désir, ou que c’est Kahnweiler qui trans- modèle plâtre, et la distinction éventuelle des épreuves met un souhait de Picasso sur l’épaisseur à donner à entre elles. Le choix du fondeur peut aussi donner des une plinthe (dont la réalisation est donc laissée aux indications sur l’éventuel désir – ou non – du sculpteur, bons soins du fondeur). d’intervenir dans la réalisation de sa série d’épreuves. Des hommes comme Julio González ou Carl Nesjar sont eux aussi intervenus pour apporter à Picasso leur En ce qui concerne les bronzes de Picasso, la cire per- maîtrise technique à des réalisations finales impactées due a été le procédé majoritairement (mais non exclu- par leur intervention. Leur action est reconnue, et ils sivement) employé. Il semble pourtant qu’il ne soit sont considérés aujourd’hui non comme des prati- pas, ou très peu, allé en fonderie réparer ses cires et ciens, ainsi qu’on les aurait qualifiés autrefois, mais qu’il n’ait pas cherché à distinguer les épreuves entre comme des « artistes collaborateurs ». Les hommes elles autrement que par la couleur appliquée après de fonderie, qui sont intervenus sur la traduction des la fonte, en les peignant parfois. S’il se fit apporter formes de Picasso, mériteraient donc, sinon d’être des cires dans son atelier, cette pratique ne put être nommés, au moins de voir leur intervention appré- systématique car celles-ci, sensibles aux chocs et aux ciée, au sens de mesurée. changements de température, supportent mal les transports. Nous avons trace de la réclamation d’un Avant même de se poser la question des rapports fondeur se plaignant, précisément, qu’il ne soit pas entre Picasso et ses fondeurs, on pourrait également venu procéder aux réparations, ou d’un autre sug- essayer de comprendre ce qui a pu guider ses choix gérant son intervention pour des restaurations de pour confier son travail, à tel ou tel moment, à une modèles détériorés, mais sans qu’on sache comment entreprise plutôt qu’à une autre : était-ce la réputa- il répondit à ces appels. Il y a trop de fontes à cire tion de la fonderie ? Les caractéristiques techniques du perdue dans l’œuvre de Picasso pour que, s’il était procédé ? Son coût ? Une soumission au désir du com- allé en personne les réparer systématiquement, cela manditaire ? Le besoin de répondre très rapidement à n’ait laissé des traces, et qu’aucun souvenir précis une commande ?… Envisager ces questions, c’est ten- à ce sujet n’ait été publié. Nous pouvons donc rai- ter d’éclairer les rapports entre l’artiste, son travail, et sonnablement envisager que si Picasso a largement l’environnement plus général dans lequel il se situe. adopté ce procédé de fonte qui permet l’intervention de l’artiste avant la coulée, particulière sur chacune des épreuves, il n’a que peu profité de cet avantage, Colloque Picasso Sculptures Francesca Casadio : Matériau, fabricants et multiples 2 Il peut aussi être intéressant de s’interroger sur les dates de coulée de certaines épreuves. Mieux les connaître, en les reliant si possible à l’entreprise qui les a produites, c’est également tenter d’approcher une modifier éventuellement leur valeur, et en particulier évolution possible, du point de vue de l’artiste, sur la leur valeur marchande. valeur personnelle et commerciale attribuée à son travail, l’importance accordée à son geste… Plusieurs Personne ne détient de vérité absolue : l’historien est bronzes de Picasso ont par exemple fait l’objet de soumis à des archives toujours trop lacunaires, à la deux tirages distincts, l’un numéroté sur 2, l’autre non distorsion des souvenirs collectés et à celle de ses numéroté (par exemple de nombreuses œuvres de très propres interprétations, le conservateur ne peut pré- petite taille du début des années 1950). Il faudrait le tendre qu’à une connaissance partielle et orientée de vérifier, et le catalogue raisonné auquel travaille Diana ses collections, le regard technicien du restaurateur a Widmaier-Picasso nous apportera sans doute des ses limites objectives et les données d’analyses four- réponses, mais les épreuves non numérotées devraient nies par les scientifiques peuvent être trompeuses. en toute logique être les premières, commandées Mais la confrontation, le croisement de ces compé- probablement par Picasso lui-même, pour lui-même, tences complémentaires devraient permettre une tandis que les épreuves numérotées sont destinées au approche originale du travail de Picasso sculpteur. marché et n’arrivent sans doute que dans un second temps. Savoir si Picasso a fait appel à la même fonderie – ou pas – pour une épreuve qu’il entend conserver et pour celle destinée au marché, c’est comprendre, déjà, s’il existe une variation de son positionnement selon l’une ou l’autre situation, et s’il a évolué dans le temps (il faudra alors s’interroger sur les raisons). Mais encore : si la numérotation a été appliquée, comme c’est certainement le cas, pour assurer à l’époque une valeur commerciale à cette épreuve numérotée, l’épreuve qui ne l’est pas, si c’est bien celle que l’artiste fait réaliser dans un premier temps pour sa propre collection, pourrait paradoxalement prendre aujourd’hui, à ce titre, à nos yeux, une valeur supérieure. Mieux connaître l’identité des bronzes (leur chronologie, leurs réalisateurs), c’est donc aussi Colloque Picasso Sculptures Francesca Casadio : Matériau, fabricants et multiples 3 UNIQUE MULTIPLES : THE TRANSLATION OF THE BOISGELOUP PLASTERS IN CEMENT AND BRONZE Silvia Loreti • Colloque Picasso Sculptures • 25 mars 2016 P ablo Picasso’s 1932 retrospectives at the Galeries Georges Petit in Paris and at the Kunsthaus Zurich were largely commercial enterprises. The Paris leg of the show was unofficially so : Wilhelm Wartmann, retrospectives, were in fact his numerous and most the director of the Kunsthaus, had to annotate prices recent works in modelling and carving in the round by hand in his copy of the Georges Petit catalogue. within the traditional space of the studio (fig. 1). Wartmann’s expanded version of the exhibition, on In autumn 1930 Picasso had begun to model larger the other hand, was openly intended for profit. The than life, disproportionate sculptures in plaster in the only four sculptures that travelled from Paris to Swit- converted stables of his recently acquired château in zerland — Jester (1905), Kneeling Woman Combing Boisgeloup, Normandy. There, he again modelled fig- Her Hair (1906), Head of a Woman, Fernande (1906) ures as he had for the clay sculptures that he had sold and Woman’s Head, Fernande (1909), the latter in the to Vollard in 1910. Zurich catalogue as Bust of a Man — were all presented It has often been said that Picasso did not exhibit the as verkäuflich (for sale). These works, then still being Boisgeloup sculptures at the 1932 retrospectives for cast in bronze by Ambroise Vollard in an unnumbered fear of his wife Olga’s reaction to the place that his edition, represented a selection of Picasso’s earliest lover Marie-Thérèse was now occupying in his life sculptures. Also included in the Georges Petit, but and work. This seems to be largely a myth : not only absent from the Kunsthaus retrospective, were three did Picasso exhibit paintings unequivocally inspired unique pieces that Picasso had made in collabora- by Marie- Thérèse, some of them referencing the Bois- tion with Julio Gonzáles at the turn of the 1930s : the geloup sculptures, in Paris and Zurich ; recently dis- painted iron sculptures Head of a Woman, 1929 – 30 covered photographs of Olga posing in front of the (Spies 81) and Woman in a Garden, 1929 – 30, and Boisgeloup sculpture studio reveal that she was fully Gonzáles’s bronze replica of the latter of 1930 – 32. aware of her husband’s work prior to the exhibitions.1 Impressed by Picasso’s metal sculptures and acknowl- Tellingly, Olga was among the party that Picasso drove edging their absence at the Kunsthaus, Wartmann from Paris to Boisgeloup that famous day in Decem- noted in his catalogue : “Picasso is a sculptor from ber 1932 when Brassaï photographed the sculpture time to time… like in his painting, here too he attains studio for the first issue of Minotaure (fig. 2). It was to technical processes, materials and forms that share through Brassaï’s photographs, as well as those taken little with the millennial tradition of the [sculpture] by Bernès-Marouteau et Cie in winter 1934 and pub- studio. This is why he would not let this part of his lished in a special issue of Cahiers d’Art two years later, work slip away from his hands.” What Wartmann that the Boisgeloup sculptures, and Picasso’s studio, seemed to ignore was that Picasso’s most jealously became widely known2. As they retained the intimate kept sculptures, absent from both the Zurich and Paris reclusiveness of Picasso’s creative environment while projecting it to the outside world, the photographs created the myth of the sculptor’s secrecy while effectively replacing the traditional function of plaster and Colloque Picasso Sculptures Silvia Loreti : unique multiples 1 through black-and-white photography, the sculptures inspired by Marie-Thérèse were transformed into goddesses as white as marble and as luminous as ivory. The effect achieved was one of a spiritual encounter bronze for the reproduction and dissemination of the with sculpture in line with classical interpretations, sculptures. That Picasso himself took suggestive pho- such as Herder’s Pygmalion (1778) essay, which theo- tographs of his sculpture studio in 1931 – 32 supports rized the origins of ancient Greek statues in the mas- Catherine Chevillot’s thesis that “the use of plaster as sive cult images emerging out of darkness in the inner a reproductive material dwindled with the increased sanctuary of temples6. use and sophistication of photography” 3. Alfred H. Barr Jr could not visit the Georges Petit show, More generally, Picasso’s choice of media in the but he promptly annotated the installation images that presentation, dissemination and preservation of the his wife brought back from Paris with titles, dates and Boisgeloup sculptures reflects a modernist impulse owners for each work7. He had plans to bring the ret- towards experimenting with the categories of unique rospective to MoMA but these fell through in favour of and multiples and private and public, and the possi- the more financially profitable exhibition in Zurich8. bilities offered by both traditional and modern mate- When Barr finally mounted his own Picasso retrospec- rials and processes. Auguste Rodin had freed plaster tive in 1939, he did not dare to ask for the Boisgeloup from its traditional status as a substitute for absent plasters, conscious as he was of their sacred status originals when he began to exhibit his workshop’s and fragile nature. Instead, he put all his efforts into large but fragmentary plasters as independent works persuading Picasso and his associates “to secure… a of art in the Alma pavilion at the 1900 World’s Fair. representative group of his recent sculptures” 9, and The autonomy of plaster as a sculptural material in to make sure that Picasso would follow through with its own right was to be further defended by the mod- “having some of his sculptures cast especially for the ernist theory of “Truth to material” 4. Sharon Hecker exhibition” 10. Eventually, Barr only managed to show has demonstrated how Medardo Rosso drew meta- a handful of sculptures up to 1930. phorically on plaster’s ambivalent status as a mate- Yet, research that I conducted in MoMA’s archives in rial expressing, at once, stability and fragility for its preparation for Picasso Sculpture suggests that Barr’s capacity to harden quickly, but also, once dry, to be wish may have been taken into consideration. In a let- easily shattered into pieces . ter to Barr ahead of the opening of Picasso : Forty Years Picasso’s plasters transmitted this modern mystique of His Art, Christian Zervos mentions Cock (1932) and of the material which Brassaï’s work vividly captured. expressed his regret that this and “other sculptures Clearly influenced by Rodin’s presentation of plas- by Picasso cast in bronze… magnificent pieces that ters in his studio at Meudon and through photogra- would have looked wonderful in your museum and 5 phy, Picasso and Brassaï drew on both the haptic and visual effects of plaster. Dramatically lit and encountered in the inside-outside space of the studio or Colloque Picasso Sculptures Silvia Loreti : unique multiples 2 would have enriched your exhibition” could not be sent to MoMA due to the outbreak of the war and Picasso’s sudden departure for Royan. These and other works had been cast by Valsuani in 1939 and functioned as a transitory step towards the repro- were to be collected in summer 1940, together with duction of forms in more solid and durable mate- a few of the artist’s plasters, for fear that the foundry rials (marble or bronze). This logic had become by may be bombed . then associated with the post-industrial surge of In spring 1940, prior to the German Occupation, bronze statuary in the second half of the nineteenth Picasso had commissioned a different Paris founder, century16. In the private sphere, this took the form Guastini, to cast at least three other Boisgeloup sculp- of commodities, the so-called mantelpiece statuettes tures . A list was provided in correspondence . Judg- that were cast in series by editors-dealers such as Vol- ing from their titles and approximate dimensions, lard, and whose bourgeois aesthetic was embraced by the works may have been three of the Marie-Thérèse Olga and mimicked by Picasso in their respective Rue inspired Boisgeloup heads and busts. The first sculp- de la Boétie apartments17 ; in the public arena, bronze ture is actually listed as Head of a Man, but something sculpture was reflected in a vertiginous rise in state similar had happened with the title of the 1909 Wom- commissions during the Third Republic, a “statuema- an’s Head (Fernande) at the 1932 Zurich show. nia” which came under attack, in the late 1920s and Three large Boisgeloup heads and busts — the two early 1930s among Picasso’s Surrealist friends. 1931 Head of a Woman (Spies 132 and Spies 133) and The Surrealists entertained an ambivalent attitude Bust of a Woman, also 1931 (Spies 131) — had already towards public monuments. On the one hand, they been cast, in cement, together with Woman with a Vase celebrated public sculpture for the imaginative possi- (1933), for the Spanish Republic Pavilion at the 1937 bilities that it offered to a surrealist experience of the Paris World Fair (fig. 3) . Cement was then a medium modern city, as evidenced in the key texts of Surreal- more closely associated with the origins and develop- ism, particularly André Breton’s trilogy Nadja (1928), ment of modern architecture for its industrial origins, Communicating Vessels (1932) and L’ Amour fou (1937) low production costs and rapidity to set. Its hybrid that make extensive use of photography (fig. 4). On the nature, at once liquid and rock solid, seemed to reflect other hand, the Surrealists antagonized the conserva- the fluidity of modern identity15. Picasso aptly chose tive ideological function of monuments18. In their view the material to translate his private goddesses into the individualized bronze statues and busts of Paris public monuments in defence of democracy’s ideals. conveyed a falsely unified and positivist idea of history, The original Boisgeloup sculptures, modelled and against which the Surrealists approach to the past was carved in plaster, resisted the aesthetic and commer- being constructed19. To bronze, which they criticized cial logic of traditional sculpture, in which plaster as a dead, unnatural material, they opposed modelled 11 12 13 14 sculpture in malleable media such as plaster and clay20. Bronze has a long associative history with the expression of power, both military and civil, having been Colloque Picasso Sculptures Silvia Loreti : unique multiples 3 vided, once again, by the photographs that Brassaï and others took of his studio, this time in Paris, at the Rue des Grands-Augustins (fig. 5). Having left Boisgeloup as part of his separation settlement with used since prehistoric times for the making of weap- Olga, and under surveillance as a degenerate art- ons and, since the Middle Ages, for the casting of town ist during the war, Picasso surrounded himself with bells and cannon balls. A manmade, shape-shifting his cherished sculptures that, once translated into compound, the material has a mythical dimension for bronze, performed the function of a defensive army its plasticity and association with the human capacity in the face of hostilities. Contrary to the ominous to modify nature. A case in point is Benvenuto Cel- Third Republic pantheon of individualized portrait lini’s histrionic account of the casting of his Perseus, heads and busts scattered around Paris and shap- in which bronze is endowed with life-giving powers21. ing the country’s collective memory, the Boisgeloup Aptly, bronze was the material chosen in classical bronzes presented themselves as a crowd of anony- antiquity for the representation of heroes . mous, if familiar heroes. United in their material “uni- The translation of the Boisgeloup plasters into unique form”, they emphasized sameness in substance over bronzes, before and during the war, extended the difference in appearance26. At the same time, their associations of the material, leading to the transfor- transmutation from the white plasters of the bright mation of a traditional sculptural medium, and the Boisgeloup stables to the dark bronzes hidden in the processes involved in its making, into subtly subver- sombre Grands-Augustins studio engendered a sense sive acts. For Picasso, who, like most post-industrial of estrangement and defamiliarization akin to the sculptors, painters in particular, relied on highly effects sought by Surrealist theories of the object. skilled casters to make his bronzes, the creation of For the Surrealists the most mundane, everyday unique pieces reflected the will to rely on the collabo- objects could activate unconscious desires when dis- ration between artists and craftsmen in order to pre- placed from their usual contexts. The 1936 exhibition serve his sculptures : “plaster is perishable”, Sabartès of Surrealist objects at the Charles Ratton Gallery, to reminded him during the Occupation, “bronze is for- which Picasso contributed some of his pre-1930s sculp- ever” . At that point, bronze allowed Picasso to resist tures, celebrated domestic objects and found materials the enemy while keeping his work close and experi- for their ability to transfigure reality, and marked the menting with it . As a painter, he was interested in high point of the Surrealists’ theoretical engagement the ability of different bronze patinas to enliven the with sculpture. At first, Picasso’s use of traditional sculptures’ surfaces. He sometimes intervened in this sculptural processes and media in the 1930s and early process, although in unskilled, untraditional and even 1940s may seem to contradict the Surrealists’ avant- irreverent ways — he later repeatedly and proudly garde approach to sculpture. Yet, the translation of 22 23 24 reported his attempt to improve the appearance of his bronzes by pissing on them.25 Insight into Picasso’s relationship with bronze is pro- Colloque Picasso Sculptures Silvia Loreti : unique multiples 4 the Boisgeloup sculptures into metaphorically charged materials attests to the dynamics of desire, engagement and resistance that underlie the artist’s reinvention of serial sculpture into ever-unique works. The author wishes to thank Elizabeth Cowling, Clare Finn, Alexandra Gerstein, Carmen Giménez and Ariel Plotek for sharing their knowledge and thoughts. Colloque Picasso Sculptures Silvia Loreti : unique multiples 5 FIG. 3  PABLO PICASSO FIG. 1 Head of a Woman, 1931 Cement, cast by July 1937 (Musée Picasso, Antibes) Indoor view of the Boisgeloup sculpture studio, Château de Boisgeloup, 1932 Gelatin-silver print, 6.8 x 11.3 cm Photographed outside of the Spanish Republic Pavilion at the 1937 Paris World Fair Musée national Picasso-Paris. MP301 Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte © RMN-Grand Palais (musée Picasso de Paris)/Droits réservés © Succession Picasso, 2016 © Archives Olga Ruiz-Picasso, Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte. Photographer unknown, all rights reserved. © Succession Picasso, 2016 FIG. 4  ANDRÉ BRETON Nadja, 1928, Paris, Gallimard, p. 26-27 FIG. 2  BRASSAÏ Atelier de Boisgeloup, December 1932 Gelatin silver print, 49 x 33,6 cm Musée national Picasso-Paris. MP1986-3 FIG. 5  HERBERT LIST © RMN-Grand Palais (musée Picasso de Paris)/image RMN-GP Picasso with Bust of a Woman, 1931 (Musée national Picasso - Paris), photographed in Picasso’s studio at 7, rue des GrandsAugustins, 1944 © Herbert List/ Magnum Photos © Succession Picasso, 2016 © Estate Brassaï - RMN-Grand Palais Colloque Picasso Sculptures Silvia Loreti : unique multiples 6 NOTES 1. Reproduced in John Richardson, Picasso & the Camera (New York : Gagosian Gallery, 2014). 2. Cahiers d’Art, Pablo Picasso 1930-1935, nos 7 – 10 (January 1936) : p.167 and 170. 3. Catherine Chevillot, “Nineteenth-Century Sculpteurs and Mouleurs : Developments in Theory and Practice”, in Revival and Invention. Sculpture Through its Material Histories, eds Sebastien Clerbois and Martina Droth (Oxford : Peter Lang, 2011), pp.201 – 230. 4. On this topic, see Alexandra Parigoris, “Truth to Material : Bronze, on the Reproduction of Truth”, in Sculpture and Its Reproductions, eds Anthony Hughes and Erich Ranfft (Chicago, IL : University of Chicago Press, 1997), pp.131 – 151. 5. Sharon Hecker, “Shuttering the Mould : Medardo Rosso and the Poetics of Plaster”, in Plaster Casts : Making, Collecting and Displaying from Classical Antiquity to the Present, eds Rune Frederiksen and Eckart Marchand (Berlin : De Gruyter, 2010), 319 – 330. On the metaphorical aspects of plaster, see also Michel Leiris, “Alberto Giacometti”, Documents, 1 – 4 (July 1929) : pp.209 – 215. 6. Alex Potts, The Sculptural Imagination : Figurative, Modernist, Minimalist (New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, 2000), pp.28 – 31. 7. Simonetta Fraquelli, “Picasso’s Retrospective at the Galeries Georges Petit, Paris 1932: A Response to Matisse”, in Picasso by Picasso : His First Museum Exhibition (Munich : Prestel, 2010), pp.83 – 84. 8. Michael C. FitzGerald, Making Modernism : Picasso and the Creation of the Market for Twentieth-Century Art (Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, 1996), pp.204 – 214. 9. Letter from Alfred H. Barr in New York to Dora Maar in Paris, 16 August 1939, MoMA Archives, New York, REG, Exh. #91. 10. Letter from Alfred H. Barr in New York to Meric Callery in Saint-Raphaël, 16 July 1939, MoMA Archives, New York, REG, Exh. #91. 11. “1938-1944”, in Picasso. Sculptures, eds Virginie Perdrisot and Cécile Godefroy (Paris : Musée Picasso, 2016), 1p.93. 12. Ibid. 13. Head of a Man, c. 80 cm ; Bust of a Woman, c. 80 cm, Head of a Man on Foot, c. 130 cm : Guastini to Picasso, 9 May 1940, in Anne Temkin and Ann Umland, eds, Picasso Sculpture (New York : The Museum of Modern Art, 2015), p.183, fig. 2. 14. With thanks to Carmen Giménez, assisted by Josefina Alix, for information on the cement cast of Woman with a Vase. 15. Jean-Louis Cohen and G. Martin Moeller, eds, Liquid Stone : New Architecture in Concrete (New York : Princeton Architectural Press, 2006), 6 ; Adrian Forty, Concrete and Culture : A Material History (London : Reaktion Books, 2012). 16. Martina Droth has highlighted the political dimension of bronze after the industrial revolution, when “the mystique power of metals… was reframed through national aspirations and invested with political meaning” : Droth, “Introduction”, in Bronze : The Power of Life and Death, ed. Penelope Curtis (Leeds Henry Moore Institute, 2005), 14 ; see also Rosalind Krauss, who has drawn attention to the “fading of the logic of the [19th century] monument” within modernism : Krauss, “Sculpture in the Expanded Field”, October 8 (Spring 1979) : pp.33 – 34. 17. See Brassaï’s 1932 photographs of Picasso reflected in the mirror of Olga and Pablo’s Rue La Boétie apartment and of the mantelpiece in Picasso’s studio, respectively published in Brassaï, Conversations with Picasso, trans. Jane Mary Todd (Chicago, IL : University of Chicago Press, 1999), 6 and in André Breton, “Picasso dans son élément”, Minotaure 1 (1933) : pp.12 – 13. 19. Simon Baker, “Statuephobia ! Surrealism and Iconoclasm in the Bronze Age”, in Baker, ed., Surrealism, History and Revolution (Oxford : Peter Lang, 2007), pp.147–230. 20. See for instance Breton’s defence of Picasso’s use of plaster in Breton, “Picasso dans son élément”, pp.16 and 20 and Maurice Raynal’s celebration of clay, in Raynal, “Dieu-Table-Cuvette”, Minotaure 3-4, December 1933, pp.39-53. 21. Frits Scholten, “Bronze, the Mythology of a Metal”, in Bronze : The Life and Death, pp.23 – 24. 22. Andrew Stewart, “Why Bronze ?”, in Power and Pathos : Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World, eds Jens M. Daehner and Kenneth Lapatin (Los Angeles : Getty Publications, 2015), pp.34 – 47. 23. Reported by Picasso, in Brassaï, Conversations with Picasso, p. 58. On the collaboration between modern sculptors and founders in France : Elisabeth Lebon, Dictionnaire des fondeurs de bronze d’art (London : Sladmore Editions, 2005). 24. On Picasso’s casting during the war, see Clare Finn, “Fondre en bronze pendant la guerre”, in Picasso Sculptures, pp.200 – 204. 25. Picasso to Françoise Gilot, in Gilot and Carlton Lake, Life with Picasso (New York : McGraw-Hill, 1964), 316, and to Roberto Otero, in Otero, “Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man”, in J. Kelley Sowards, ed., Makers of the Western Tradition : Portraits from History (Newtown : St Martin’s Press, 1987), p.316 26. “The marvellous thing about bronze is that it can give the most heterogeneous objects such unity that it’s sometimes difficult to identify the elements that compose it. But that’s also a danger : if you were to see only the bull’s head, and not the bicycle seat and handlebar that formed it, the sculpture would lose some of its impact”, in Brassaï, Conversations with Picasso, p.60. 18. Raymond Spiteri, “Surrealism and the Irrational Embellishment of Paris”, in Surrealism and Architecture, ed. Thomas Mical (London : Routledge, 2005), pp.191 – 208. Colloque Picasso Sculptures Silvia Loreti : unique multiples 7 PICASSO’S DEFENSIVE HEAD OF A WARRIOR Hannah Yohalem • Colloque Picasso Sculptures • 25 mars 2016 I t is tempting to consider Head of a Warrior, a plaster sculpture that Pablo Picasso created in his Boisgeloup studio in 1933, as a humorous one-off, comically jabbing at the image of the hero (fig. 1) 1. as a synecdoche for the artist’s craft in the Vollard As is so often the case with Picasso’s work, however, Suite prints. Like the Minotaur images from the suite, this sculpture cannot be taken in isolation within his the “Sculptor’s Studio” prints are classical in setting.3 oeuvre. Despite the prominent crest and ambivalent Throughout, the sculptor and model/muse, bedecked smirk, it relates closely in form to the series of plaster in laurels, gaze upon a bust like Head of a Woman sculptures of a woman’s head that Picasso made over (1932) that sits atop a Greek column. the previous two years. And conversely, the figure of Head of a Warrior thus unites the themes Picasso was the helmeted warrior proliferates in Picasso’s illustra- exploring elsewhere in print and plaster. The expan- tions for Gilbert Seldes’s translation of Aristophanes’s ding volumes of the eyes and nose coupled with the Greek comedy Lysistrata, published in 1934 . These Greek-style crest combine the formal play of the more contexts internal to Picasso’s work suggest a point of abstract set of plaster heads with the classicizing cha- entry but do not exhaust Head of a Warrior’s conno- racterization of the other plasters and the prints. The tations. Instead, they allow us to see the sculpture as warrior figure itself incorporates yet another of Picas- a response, and a staunchly defensive one at that, to so’s projects from the time, namely the illustrations for shifts in the artistic and political spheres taking shape Aristophanes’s Lysistrata, as mentioned above. Even at beyond the walls of his studio. the level of materials, Head of a Warrior emphasizes Picasso began his series of volumetric plaster heads incorporation and unification. The plaster literally with a fairly simple depiction of his then-lover, holds together tennis-ball eyes, a chicken-wire crest, a Marie-Thérèse Walter. From there, he moved in two spine made of twisted wire and piping, a crowbar at directions : on the one hand, he played with the bust’s the back of the neck, and nails that support the top features, elongating the nose and in turns bulging and curve of the nose. It is this sense of unity and stasis, recessing the eyes, pushing the face into phallic terri- combining and incorporating elements from a range tory that culminated with a nearly abstract series of of Picasso’s works as well as diverse materials, that bulbous forms in Head of a Woman of 1931. On the allows this sculpture to function as a statement of other hand, he moved the plaster heads toward grea- Picasso’s practice. A statement made in opposition to ter clarity and figural simplicity, melding the figure’s the emerging model of Surrealist sculpture exemplified nose into its forehead and forming the hair into a by Alberto Giacometti’s Suspended Ball (1930) (fig. 2). separate volume while still explicitly maintaining the Giacometti’s sculpture was first shown at Pierre Loeb’s work’s representational qualities. This latter direction gallery in Paris in the fall of 1930. Even if Picasso yielded the sculptural type that Picasso would employ did not see it then, he was certainly aware of it soon 2 afterwards. It became instantly important to the Surrealists. The historian Maurice Nadeau would later write, “Everyone who saw the hanging, slit ball in motion Colloque Picasso Sculptures Hannah Yohalem : Picasso’s Defensive Head of a Warrior 1 over the blade felt a strong and indescribable excitement, not without its portion of subconscious sexual arousal… Now the door was open for a whole series of such objects.” 4 Within the next year, Suspended Ball sphere, with its darkly shadowed crescent cutout, appeared in Le Surréalisme au service de la révolution hovers over the wedge form ; it is both testicular and as part of Giacometti’s drawings “objects mobiles et feminine, actively biting and passively being cut, muets” and in Giacometti’s first solo show at the Gale- moving with gravity and air and symbolically isolated rie Pierre Colle in May 1932. Upon the opening of that from the surrounding space through the metal arma- exhibition, Giacometti wrote to his father proudly pro- ture.8 Head of a Warrior, in turn, unites the two abs- claiming that Picasso was among the first visitors.5 tract elements and internalizes the support structure. Picasso and Giacometti have long been thought to Picasso transforms crescent into crest ; he collapses have influenced one another. Reinhold Hohl argues the sphere’s cutout into the thin, smirking mouth ; he that Picasso’s club and sphere forms found in his distorts the clarity of Giacometti’s two forms into a 1930 drawing Project for a Monument first informed misshapen head, leaving the tennis-ball eyes as dupli- Suspended Ball, while Picasso’s anatomy drawings of cated, caricatured echoes of the elegant suspended 1933 are undeniably related to the “objets mobiles et sphere, freezing both the gender play and the literal muets.” movement of Giacometti’s shapes. 6 The question here is not who more force- fully influenced whom, but what form that interaction Picasso’s figural response to Giacometti came while the took. In this context, Head of a Warrior stands as a Surrealists were seeking him out. André Breton in par- purposefully differentiating counter-response within ticular was attempting to claim Picasso for his artistic this artistic dialogue. Picasso defended himself against cause. The first issue of the journal Minotaure appeared the onslaught of Surrealism and its artists’ appropria- in May 1933 with Picasso’s artwork on the cover and his tion of his forms by breaking with and transforming a anatomy drawings inside. Brassaï’s photographs accom- shared formal vocabulary. panied Breton’s essay on Picasso “in his element.” 9 Even As early as 1930, Carl Einstein argued in Docu- as Picasso willingly participated in Minotaure, he fought ments that Picasso’s “answer to the fatality of the his full incorporation into the Surrealist narrative. Head unconscious is a prodigious wish for clearly intel- of a Warrior does more than just turn to figuration and ligible figuration.” 7 At the most basic level, Head of Picasso’s other work from the period in order to coun- a Warrior performs this shift into intelligible figura- ter Giacometti’s powerful forms and Breton’s insistent tion. Suspended Ball couples a sphere hanging from prose. In it, Picasso replaced the straightforward classi- the top of a metal cage-like space with a larger cres- cal unity of some of the other plaster heads, which Bras- cent-shaped reclining form ; contact between the two saï was already recouping for Surrealism through the is continuously held on the edge of fulfillment. The Minotaure photographs, with the further clarity of the profile and the stasis of the relief and the type. The flat plane of the Warrior’s crest and the protruding left eye pull the viewer to one side to see the sculpture Colloque Picasso Sculptures Hannah Yohalem : Picasso’s Defensive Head of a Warrior 2 In this way the visual content is universally arranged, bound together and put in repose.” 11 Not only is the visual content “bound together and put in repose,” but the sculpture also projects its own viewing conditions, in profile. Its less finished right side further empha- inviting the viewer to stand still and view it from one sizes the priority of the singular side view. Indeed, vantage point. Where the viewer of Suspended Ball cir- taken together, the crest and the triangular, corrugated cles it, seeing it move within the same space as the section at the base of the neck describe a flat plane viewer herself, the warrior sets up a pictorial distance. that bisects the head vertically such that the sculpture Even on a figural level, Head of a Warrior emphasizes best reads as a profile in relief built out from a sug- clarity and stability. A single attribute — the helmet gested ground plane. Throughout art history, the pro- that is in fact just a fanning crest connected directly to file has served to simplify and thereby strengthen the the figure’s head — defines him as a generic “warrior.” immediate resonance of images, from rulers’ profiles This figure has neither backstory nor developmental imprinted on coins to Kara Walker’s stark and grue- potential, and the translation of the French title Tête 10 some caricatures of the antebellum American south. casquée (Helmeted head) into the English Head of a Picasso was well aware of the clarity and immediacy Warrior makes this equation between attribute and of the profile : he employed it to differentiate between identity all the more apparent. the inorganic sculptures and the living, breathing Rosalind Krauss describes Suspended Ball as engaging sculptor and model throughout the Vollard Suite. a metaphorics of sexual difference entirely struc- For Head of a Warrior, Picasso also employed the tured by the gendered connotations of the sphere and device of the profile to achieve the effects of relief the crescent as they interact. She compares it to the in a work in the round. He separated out the various intersecting chains of metaphors in Georges Bataille’s degrees of relief and enumerated them alongside one Story of the Eye — those related to the shape of the another : from the straight cut of the mouth to the eye and those related to its fluid interior — such that pupil’s shallow indentation, from the deeper holes the two are “deprived of a point of origin in the real and ridge of the crest’s decoration all the way to the world, a moment that would be anterior to the meta- intricate, petal-like folds of the ear and the eyeball’s phorical transformations… the story has no privileged absurd protuberance, the viewer sees depth always in term.”12 Each leads into and is structured by the other. relation to a series of parallel planes. Even the bulge In contrast, Picasso’s visual metaphors in Head of a of the cheek and nose read as if they were built out Warrior move in one direction. He equates a tennis from the common ground. The relief, as traditionally ball with an eye, grounding the equation in a material understood and discussed in the nineteenth-century similarity that, beneath the plaster, simply becomes aesthetic theories of Adolf von Hildebrand, unifies part of the sculpture’s structure. Once transformed, through its pictorial address : “The thousand-fold judgments and movements of our observation find in this mode of presentation their stability and clearness… Colloque Picasso Sculptures Hannah Yohalem : Picasso’s Defensive Head of a Warrior 3 the everyday materials making up the warrior’s head and crest stabilize into their figural referents.13 If the top portion of Head of a Warrior halts Suspended Ball’s literal and metaphorically ungrounded movement, in Germany.14 That year the Nazi party also began compressing it into the pictorial univocality of the pro- to publicly claim Europe’s Hellenistic inheritance as file, the relief, and the type, the relationship between its own, as a means of legitimizing the future of the the top and bottom sections of the sculpture asserts Third Reich.15 By the end of 1933, they would inaugu- Picasso’s own power of material transformation. rate the construction of the “Temple of German Art” The face of the imprinted cardboard box at the bottom in Munich with a highly publicized parade in which a of the work juts out on just enough of a diagonal to bust of Hercules and a gilded statue of Pallas Athena break away from the relief’s ground. This slight torque symbolized “sculpture” amongst classicizing allego- brings the base into the three-dimensional space ope- ries for the other arts.16 ned up between the metal pipe and the pseudopod-like As these new political and propagandistic realities plaster “column.” Split between bottom and top, Head took shape, Picasso was working on the illustrations of a Warrior thus displays the transition that Picasso for Lysistrata, a Greek comedy mocking and dispara- facilitates from the raw space and materials of life into ging war. In it, the women of Athens and the women of the unified, constructed forms of art. And plaster here, Sparta agree to withhold sex from their husbands and with the imprint of the corrugated cardboard and the lovers until the men end the Peloponnesian War. The box, functions as the prime material in which he can women eventually succeed and the men, hungry for literally embed his transformational process. Within the sexual satisfaction, reach the truce that eluded them year, the transformation of raw material texture into through many years of battle. Gilbert Seldes, the publi- figural representation would be the central concern of sher and translator of this new version, introduced and his plaster work, as with Woman with Leaves (1934) staged the text as a “rowdy farce.” 17 Yet, taking a more (fig. 3). While the form and construction of the warrior serious turn, he also argued that this farce succeeds defend against Surrealism, the figure, with its bulbous precisely because Aristophanes romanticized neither nose and sheepish grin also serves as a defensive belitt- love nor war but instead treated them both with “hard- lement of the soldier in the face of rising militarism in headed intelligence, with realism.” Europe. Picasso was well aware that world politics pre- cifies that this realism is the realism not just of ancient sented as much of a threat to his conception of artma- Greece, but also of the early 1930s. Aristophanes lived king as Giacometti and the other Surrealists did. through the Peloponnesian War, and witnessed the fall Between his appointment as Chancellor at the end of Athens. Seldes writes, “He saw, in effect, what many of January and his blood purge of the SA leadership people think we are seeing today — the downfall of in June, 1934, Hitler solidified his position of power civilization — and that is probably another reason why 18 Seldes later spe- he is so sympathetic to us.” 19 The Greek soldiers were not the ultimate warriors that the Nazis embraced, but simply lonely, horny men. Seldes cast Lysistrata as a Colloque Picasso Sculptures Hannah Yohalem : Picasso’s Defensive Head of a Warrior 4 parable for his time, a deadly serious farce written in the face of impending violence that did not end with the conclusion of the Great War. In his illustrations, Picasso caricatured Aristophanes’s helmeted warriors, depicting them with pouting lips, prodigious, curling beards, and ever-changing decorations on their highly visible crests while also honoring the text and following the narrative quite closely (fig. 4). As in the text, the men are shown as at once highly ridiculous and highly serious ; Aristophanes mocks them but cannot disregard them since war was an ever-present reality for him. This same tone applies to Head of a Warrior. The warrior is quixotic — propped up on his pipe with his bulbous nose and slight smirk, yet adorned with the real vestments of battle.20 This pathetic quality, like that of the sex-starved soldiers Aristophanes imagined from within his own war-torn country, stands defensively against the serious increase of military force that accompanied Hitler’s ascent. It is the soft-bellied reality of war leavened with humor — militarism neither ignored nor attacked outright, but undermined. Both Seldes’s introduction and Picasso’s sculpture were regrettably prescient. By 1937, Athena’s helmeted profile would introduce the “Great German Art Exhibition” paired with the infamous “Degenerate Art” show and the war would follow shortly thereafter (fig. 5). Picasso kept Head of the Warrior around his studio for years ; it is visible in Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photographs of his studio in 1944. In amongst his other work, it stood, and continues to stand, as Picasso’s assertion of his artistic vision even as he mocked the figure of the warrior in the face of mounting disaster. Colloque Picasso Sculptures Hannah Yohalem : Picasso’s Defensive Head of a Warrior 5 FIG. 3  PABLO PICASSO Woman with Leaves, 1934 Plaster, 38.5 x 27.5 x 21 cm Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte. Spies - 157I (Femme au feuillage) © Photo: Eric Baudouin © Succession Picasso, 2016 PABLO PICASSO Lysistrata d'Aristophanes, 1933 Estampes, 20,7 x 13,9 cm FIG. 1  PABLO PICASSO Head of a Warrior (1933) Plaster, metal, and wood, 120.7 x 24.9 x 68.8 cm Collection MoMA, New York. 268.1984 Paris, musée national Picasso- Paris MP2425 © Succession Picasso, 2016 ©RMN-Grand Palais (musée national Picasso - Paris) / Thierry Le Mage © Succession Picasso, 2016 FIG. 5  Grosse Deutsche Kunstaustellung 1937 Im Haus der Deutschen Kunst zu Munchen [The Great German Art Exhibition in the House of German Art in Munich] (1937). Published by Verlag Knorr & Hirth G.m.b.H., Munchen, height : 21 cm ; width : 15 cm ; depth 1 cm FIG. 2  ALBERTO GIACOMETTI Suspended Ball (1930 – 1931) (version of 1965) Originally painted wood, ficelle, and metal, this version plaster, painted metal and ficelle Dimensions 23,85 x 14,01 x 14,21 in. Collection Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti © Succession Alberto Giacometti (Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti, Paris + ADAGP, Paris) 2016 Colloque Picasso Sculptures Hannah Yohalem : Picasso’s Defensive Head of a Warrior 6 NOTES * This article grew out of my research for the 2015 Museum Research Consortium Study Sessions at the Museum of Modern Art. The original text can be found in The MRC Dossier 2. 1. Roland Penrose describes it as just such a jab. See Roland Penrose, The Sculpture of Picasso (New York : The Museum of Modern Art, 1967), p.26. 2. Some prints are dated 1934, but Picasso dated the plate with his signature to 1933. See Aristophanes, Lysistrata : A New Version by Gilbert Seldes, trans. Seldes (New York : Limited Editions Club, 1934). The helmeted form also appears in Picasso’s sketches of the crucifixion. See Werner Spies with Christine Piot, Picasso  : The Sculptures, Catalogue Raisonné of the Sculptures (Ostfildern-Ruit : Hatje Cantz, 2000), p.195. 3. Picasso turned to classical subjects and images in a number of his print projects from the early 1930s including his illustrations for Ovid’s Metamorphoses, sections of the Vollard Suite including the Minotaur images and the “sculptor’s studio,” as well as his illustrations for Aristophanes’s Lysistrata. See Lisa Florman, Myth and Metamorphosis : Picasso’s Classical Prints of the 1930s (Cambridge, MA : MIT Press, 2000) for an analysis of this body of work. 4. Maurice Nadeau, Histoire du Surréalisme (Paris : Seuil, 1945), p.215, quoted in Reinhold Hohl, Alberto Giacometti (London : Thames and Hudson, 1972), p.249. Georges Sadoul similarly said (quoted in Hohl) that it “started the fashion for Surrealistic objects with symbolic or erotic overtones, and it became the duty of every self-respecting Surrealist to make them.” 5. Giovanni Giacometti, quoted in ibid. 6. Ibid., 81. Rosalind Krauss cites Hohl’s comparison as a counter example to her own argument that Giacometti’s sculpture functions not at all like Picasso’s. My understanding of Suspended Ball follows Krauss’s. See Krauss, “No More Play,” in The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths (Cambridge, MA : MIT Press, 1985), p.57. Colloque Picasso Sculptures 7. Carl Einstein in Documents 11.2 (1930). Quoted in Markus Müller, “The Work in the Age of its Stylistic Convertibility ; Pablo Picasso Between Classicism and Surrealism,” Pablo Picasso and Marie-Thérèse Walter : Between Classicism and Surrealism, ed. Müller (Bielefeld : Kerber, 2004), p.14. 8. Yve-Alain Bois describes these last two characteristics — the incorporation of literal movement and thus literal time and the ambivalence about literal space — as inherently Surrealist. See Bois, “The Sculptural Opaque,” trans. Kimball Lockhart and Douglas Crimp SubStance 10.2.31 (1981), pp.23 – 48, and p.36. 9. Breton discusses the plaster heads in “Picasso dans son élément,” Minotaure, no. 1 (1933) : pp.4–27 accompanied by five pages of Brassaï’s photographs of them. By this time, Giacometti was more closely associated with Bataille than with Breton, but Suspended Ball was heralded by the orthodox Surrealists as well. See Krauss, “No More Play.” 15. On the uses and abuses of classical art in Nazi Germany see : Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, Art under a Dictatorship (New York : Oxford University Press, 1954) and Alex Scobie, Hitler’s State Architecture : The Impact of Classical Antiquity (Pennsylvania, PA : Penn State Press, 1990). 16. Eric Michaud, The Cult of Art in Nazi Germany, trans. Janet Lloyd (Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press, 2004), pp.101–102. 17. Seldes, “Introduction,” Lysistrata 5. A production of Seldes’s translation toured the United States beginning in 1930. 18. Ibid., p.6. 19. Ibid., p.11. 20. Spies argues that it is the contrast between the undistorted headdress and the distorted face that allows us to interpret him “as a clown condemned to war.” Spies and Piot, Picasso : The Sculptures, p.206. 10. David Joselit taps the history of the profile image in his analysis of consumer and social media profiles. See David Joselit, “Profiles,” Texte zur Kunst 73 (March 2009) : pp.141–144. 11. Adolf Von Hildebrand, The Problem of Form in Painting and Sculpture, trans. Max Meyer and Robert Morris Ogden (New York : G.E. Strechert & Co., 1907), p.83. 12. Krauss, “No More Play,” p.63. 13. Some of these have dual connotations — like nose and penis — but this comparison isn’t part of a larger metaphoric system the way it is in Suspended Ball. If anything, it relates out to Picasso’s illustrations for Lysistrata and to the broader political sphere. See below. 14. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. “SA,” accessed June 17, 2016, http://www. britannica.com/topic/SA-Nazi-organization. Hannah Yohalem : Picasso’s Defensive Head of a Warrior 7 PICASSO’S CASTING IN BRONZE DURING WORLD WAR II Clare Finn • Colloque Picasso Sculptures • 25 mars 2016 D uring the Second World War there were rumours concerning Picasso’s whereabouts.1 But stories of his casting during the war emerged only after the Liberation. Photographs by people such as Robert BUT WHAT ACTUALLY WENT ON ? Capa, Lee Miller and Henri Cartier-Bresson that show In the Musée Picasso’s Picasso Sculptures exhibition sculptures in his studio were also taken after the catalogue, which should be read in tandem with this Liberation. essay, I briefly charted Picasso’s bronze casting before The first to publish an account of his casting activity the war. Then, with the Valsuani Foundry’s closure were the art dealers Harriet and Sidney Janis in in 1940, I follow Picasso’s change of foundries to Picasso : The Recent Years 1939 – 1946, in which they continue a programme of casting begun before war include a grainy photograph showing Tête de taureau, was declared, first to an obscure caster called Guas- La femme en robe longue, Tête de mort and Le Chat,2 tini, then in 1941 to the foundry of Émile Robecchi. taken in Picasso’s studio captioning it : “Bronzes We can document Picasso continuing to bronze cast Made During the War. These and more than a dozen into June 1942, and perhaps a little beyond. When of Picasso’s pre-war sculptures were cast during the he stopped coincided with an ordinance coming into occupation.” Brassaï’s account of Picasso’s war-time force enabling the German military authorities to casting was published only in 1964 in his Conversations close any enterprise they felt non-essential to the war avec Picasso. Despite being written from notes Brassaï economy.6 Art-bronze casting cannot have appeared made at the time of the conversations he also refers to essential. But Picasso’s decision to stop may have been public events that do not correlate with the dates he is influenced more by the wider war economy described speaking of, thus it reads more like a memoire. here, rather than by specific legislation. 3 4 Yet both accounts originate from Picasso. Brassaï’s was his reaction to seeing bronzes in Picasso’s GERMAN REPARATIONS studio in September 1943. He was there to discuss Eighty per cent of Europe’s copper consumption was photographing sculpture for a book, which would supplied from outside Europe.7 The German occu- eventually be published in 1948 as Les Sculptures pation of France meant that from 31 July 1940 all de Picasso, the first serious publication on Picasso’s importation of metal from overseas stopped. From sculpture.5 The Janis’s appear to have got their then on all France’s needs and Germany’s demands on story from conversations with Picasso in February France had to be met from existing stocks.8 Problems and March 1946. Both accounts give the activity an with supply were inevitable. air of mystery, referring to ‘forbidden’metals and In 1940 Germany took over 800,000 tons of copper clandestine deliveries. from France. But this was from the French Military9 and the public at large would have been relatively unaware of it. It was an ignorance that would not last. In July 1941 Vichy launched a widespread voluntary programme to collect everyday items made of non-fer- Colloque Picasso Sculptures Clare Finn : Picasso’s casting in bronze during World War II 1 SUPPLY SYSTEMS AND ITS EFFECT ON AVAILABLE WORK Germany took reparations from France not just as non-ferrous metals but also in the form of manufacrous metals : cooking pots, ashtrays, coat racks, protec- tured goods and overall the French metallurgy sector tive metal on furniture, doors and stairways, and the benefited from the war economy. famous brasserie counters. Hotels and restaurants were Citroën, Renault and Peugeot together supplied the sent surveys asking for objects not vital to their busi- Wehrmacht with 93,000 vehicles.13 After the war, nesses. These surveys were followed by inspectors who the International Military Tribunal of Major War removed overlooked items making it questionable how Criminals would hear that in undertaking contracts voluntary the programme was. The programme was for finished goods the French rendered the Reich not a success and to recuperate, more bronze public and its Armed Forces valuable service.14 sculpture, deemed unartistic, was removed. Between The benefits to the metallurgy sector filtered down November 1941 and February 1942, over sixty pub- even to small businesses and in June 1941 eighty lic sculptures were removed. More was scheduled for per cent of Paris’ metallurgical industries were small. removal, but was eventually saved by transport and Despite problems with materials and manpower, few labour shortages. The number of sculptures destroyed of the firms in the “Petite et Moyenne” section of the throughout France is believed to be around 1,700. Parisian Metallurgy Association were forcibly closed. How much Picasso understood of the reparations Much of the work depended on contracts with the we don’t know but he would certainly have seen the state for Germany.15 To deal with these contracts Vichy stripped counters and the empty pedestals. It may also introduced economic controls from autumn 1940 ; have made him reflect on his own stock of non-fer- rationing, complex supply systems for raw materials rous metals’ security, his cast bronzes. Aware that he and mandatory declaration of stocks. But with live- had been designated a ‘degenerate’artist, he would not lihoods depending on having the raw materials with have wanted his work requisitioned for the war effort. which to work, not everyone complied.16 This led to Documents dated to the period when Picasso was in hoarding.17 Despite being allotted bronze to cast Arno Royan indicate that arrangements were made for casts Breker’s work, Eugène Rudier would tell Breker he to be delivered to his store at 25 Rue des Grands-Au- had enough undeclared materials to fulfil the sculp- gustins, a minute’s walk from his studio at number 7. tor’s needs.18 Given the size versus the weight of metal Later Brassaï remarked on how many bronzes were in ingots, hiding quantities of them may not have been the studio and later still referred to plasters being at difficult. They could be buried in quite large quanti- number 25, “because of the lack of bronze, they are ties, especially if a foundry floor was earthen. Richard all still in plaster”. So it seems Picasso reorganized Vinen tells us that the German presence tended to be 10 11 12 things to keep a firm eye on his bronzes. Colloque Picasso Sculptures Clare Finn : Picasso’s casting in bronze during World War II 2 more in Paris’s smart western quarters and was slight in the industrial suburbs surrounding the city where foundries tended to be located.19 This would not have helped the Germans root out undeclared stocks or ously, the foundry had not held stocks of metal as was other activities. the norm, a factor that led to its liquidation.20 Sig- So work was available in the metallurgical sector ; nificantly, there is no suggestion this work was clan- yet for art-bronze foundries there was a greater com- destine or resistance motivated and every indication, promise than just working on contracts for Germany. if they had obtained the metal, that they could have State contracts were for industrial casting — machine continued casting during Vichy’s programme for col- parts or munitions, which for art-bronze casters lecting such metals. Thus Picasso’s activity now looks involved a loss of skills that were no longer neces- less out of step. sary ; the skill of individual mould making, chasing of Christian Dior to supply Marks and Spencer. Still DID PICASSO SPEED UP THE NUMBER OF PIECES HE CAST ? earning a living was important. Guastini, who had Currently we know little of how much Picasso cast work in his metier from Picasso, remained in Paris in the 1930s, certainly several pieces but perhaps throughout the exode of 1940, which reduced the not every year. When Valsuani’s closed in 1940 city’s population, normally around 3,000,000, to there were seven bronzes at his foundry. Picasso had between 700,000 and 1,000,000. Guastini panicked already collected two and Guastini would cast three only as German troops neared the city. He returned more for him. That brings the number of bronzes the deposit to Kahnweiler that Picasso had already cast in the period just before the war and into 1940 paid him. A month later, reassured Armageddon has to at least twelve. But in 1941 Picasso cast three not occurred, he began trying to cast again. times as many plus fifteen pieces by the Catalan and patinating. It is like asking the couture ateliers WHAT ART-BRONZE CASTING WAS POSSIBLE IN 1941 ? sculptor Apel-les Fenosa.21 But it is not an escalating pattern, as in 1942 he cast only eleven of his own and a further fourteen of Fenosa’s works.22 Counter We have little information of what art-bronze cast- intuitively, Picasso cast larger pieces in 1942 than ers were actually doing under the occupation. Some in 1941. With diminishing metal stocks one might may have diversified. Rudier continued casting art expect the contrary, but Picasso may equally have bronzes, but for the Germans. However, Elisabeth wanted to cast larger pieces while he still could. The Lebon records that the Fonderie Cooperative des 1942 work includes two “statue manequin” [sic], La Artistes cast art bronzes in 1941, and would have cast Femme en robe longue at 161cm high, and a “sujet more had it been able to obtain the bronze. Notori- grandeur nature” that may be either L’Orateur at 183.5 cm high or La Femme à l’orange, at 180.5 cm high.23 There seems also to be a correlation between size, complexity of casting and cost, a cost that esca- Colloque Picasso Sculptures Clare Finn : Picasso’s casting in bronze during World War II 3 with these matters himself and did not delegate them to Sabartés, weakening the argument for Sabartés’s role in the wartime casting.29 lates over time. As the purchasing power of the franc went down, hoarding led to a speculative market in CLANDESTINE TRANSPORT goods, reflected in the prices Picasso was charged. The April 1943 moulding is the last traceable work Hence Dora Maar remarked to Jean Cocteau : “The that Robecchi did for Picasso. It indicates that at least metal is like gold.” this caster and some of his workforce were still avail- 24 25 Ironically, Picasso would be charged even more after the war ! able to work for Picasso. They had not closed, nor complied with Prime Minister Pierre Laval’s request, Finally, in April 1943 Robecchi gave Picasso an in June 1942, to volunteer to work in Germany. invoice charging him a sum that was 80 per cent of Robecchi probably cast for Picasso for as long as his the total the caster had previously charged for all metal stocks lasted, doing other work once these were the casting he had conducted in 1941. The work was gone. What that other work was, we do not know. The not, however, for bronze casting but for “moulding price rise in Robecchi’s invoices may be a measure of on site in the artist’s atelier… in plaster from clay”.26 his desperation. He must have indeed risked a fair Among these plaster moulds Robecchi listed “statue bit delivering pieces. Vichy’s requirements to declare, homme grandeurs nature avec mouton” (L’ Homme donate or register non-ferrous metals would make au mouton), cast in bronze by Valsuani after the war, openly transporting a ‘degenerate’artist’s bronze and “Grande piece sujet – Guerrier” (probably Tête sculpture troublesome at best. casquée). 27 Picasso disputed the cost on the invoice and paid Robecchi less than half. 28 BLACK OR GREY ECONOMY ? Christian Zervos carried pieces left at Valsuani’s in 1940 by métro, though Le Coq was left with Meric Callery as it was too large to be transported that way. Brassaï remarks on the lack of petrol and that Picasso Clandestine activities are generally difficult to trace. would walk between the Rue la Boétie and the Rue des Yet both Robecchi and Picasso left a conspicuous paper Grands-Augustins.30 Werner Zachmann — the person in trail. Robecchi put his foundry mark on pieces. Picasso charge of the métro and omnibuses in Gross-Paris, and throughout paid not with used franc notes as one of the Eiffel Tower, because of its elevators, from July might imagine, but by cheque. This would have been 1941 to 1944 — said that under the Occupation petrol in accord with laws enacted in 1940 and 1941 stating was no longer freely available. Cars could only be driven payments in excess of 3,000 francs, which these were, with a permit and they were issued “only if there was be made only by cheque. Presumably Robecchi banked some overriding reason and the owner could not use the those cheques. So if the relevant authorities have métro — the fire brigade… and the like.” 31 But it is looked into the activity there was plenty to look at. On each invoice Picasso also recorded the bank and cheque numbers in his own hand, indicating he dealt Colloque Picasso Sculptures Clare Finn : Picasso’s casting in bronze during World War II 4 known Picasso drove back from Royan in August 1940 and thus may also have collected Le Coq himself by car. Two years later obtaining petrol for private transport was probably not possible. Moving two casts of the 161-cm-high La femme en longue robe, from the foundry to Picasso’s studio must have been challenging at best. A CHANGE IN ATTITUDE As the war drew to a close in 1944 it was industry that demonstrated the change in attitude to acts done to cling to livelihoods in troubled times. The Groupement des Industries Métallurgiques Mécaniques et Connexes des la Région Parisienne encouraged its members to compile dossiers on their resistance activities, suggesting maintenance of illicit stocks was a ‘resistance’act.32 Hiding stocks of metal did deny Germany access to economic resources. But I doubt Picasso or Robecchi were motivated by that reasoning while they were doing it. Picasso’s commissioning of Robecchi did, however, allow him to do work in his metier, which was not for Germany. Colloque Picasso Sculptures Clare Finn : Picasso’s casting in bronze during World War II 5 HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON Atelier de Picasso, rue des Grands-Augustins, Paris, 1944 musée national Picasso-Paris. MPPH2557 © RMN-Grand Palais (musée Picasso de Paris) / Daniel Arnaudet © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos © Succession Picasso, 2016 Colloque Picasso Sculptures Clare Finn : Picasso’s casting in bronze during World War II 6 NOTES 1. Henri Matisse assured his son Pierre that rumours Picasso was in Switzerland, or in a lunatic asylum were untrue. John Russell, Matisse Father & Son (New York : Harry N. Abrams, 1999), pp.193, 231. (Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press, 2009), p.17 and p.195. 2. Werner Spies, Picasso, The Sculptures (Ostfildern : Hatje Cantz, 2000), nos 240, 238A, 238, 219 and 195. 11. Municipal governments and private associations owning statues were to be paid for the bronze at a rate similar to that used for the voluntary campaign of 30 francs a kilo. June Hargrove, The Statues of Paris : An Open Air Pantheon : The History of Statues to Great Men (New York : Vendome Press, 1989), 303 – 306. See also Yvon Bizadel, ‘Les Statues parisiennes fondues sous l’occupation 1940-1944’and’Catalogue des statues enlevées par les Nazis a Paris, 1940-1944, et quelques images en conservant le souvenir’, Gazette des BeauxArts 83 (March 1974)  : pp.130–134; Pierre Jahan and Jean Cocteau, La Mort et les Statues (Paris : Éditions du Compas, 1946) ; Pierre Jahan, ‘La Mort et les Statues, Décembre 1941’, Gazette des BeauxArts 83 (March 1974) : pp.153 – 156. 3. Harriet and Sidney Janis, Picasso : The Recent Years 1939 – 1946 (New York : Doubleday & Co., 1946), 5 and text for plate 130. 4. Brassaï, Conversations avec Picasso (Paris : Gallimard, 1964). 5. Daniel Henri Kahnweiler, Les Sculptures de Picasso (Paris : Les Éditions du Chêne, 1948). 6. The German military authorities brought in an ordinance to close enterprises they thought non-essential to the war effort on 26 February 1942. Vichy delayed its enforcement until 4 July 1942. François Lehideux, “Industrial production, Document 304, Paris, 20 January 1956’, in France during the German Occupation 1940 – 1944: A Collection of 292 Statements on the Government of Maréchal Pétain and Pierre Laval, Vol. 1 (Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press, 1957), pp.25– 9. 7. Alan S. Milward, The New Order and the French Economy (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1970), 27 and 35 ; Pierre Cathala, ‘Industrial production, the protection of French factories and output’, France during the German Occupation, pp.30–34. 8. E. C. Karlsgodt, ‘Recycling French Heroes : The Destruction of Bronze Statues under the Vichy Regime’, French Historical Studies 29 (2006) : pp.143–181. 9. Germany took so much non-ferrous metals and their ores from all their occupied western territories that General Thomas, head of the Wirtschafts- und Rüstungsamt, believed this accounted for Germany’s lack of serious shortages of these materials throughout 1941. Milward, The New Order and the French Economy, 79, 80 and 93 ; Kirrily Freeman, Bronzes to Bullets  : Vichy and the Destruction of French Statuary, 1941 – 1944 Colloque Picasso Sculptures 10. Karlsgodt, ‘Recycling French Heroes’, 143–181; Freeman, Bronzes to Bullets, p.26. 12. Brassaï, Picasso & Co (London : Thames & Hudson, 1967). Entry for 5 May 1944, p. 135. 13. Antony Beevor and Artemis Cooper, Paris After the Liberation 1944 – 1949 (London : Penguin Books, 2004), pp.104– 105. 14. Milward, p.108 and 281. 15. But small businesses were often exploited by larger firms, tight margins and late payments were difficult for smaller firms and larger firms who got the contacts and the ‘Zast Bonds’by which metal was acquired, did not always pass those bonds on when subcontracting, forcing small businesses to use precious stocks. Thus, while Vichy spoke illustriously of the skilled labourer and small businessman, artisans’needs for raw materials were neglected in favour of large businesses. Richard Vinen, The Politics of French Business 1936 – 1945 (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp.168–171. 17. Paul Sanders, ‘Economic Draining – German Black Market Operations in France, 1940 – 1944’, Global Crime, Special Issue : Organised Crime in History, vol. 9, no. 1 – 2 (2008), pp.136 – 168. 18. ‘Mon prévoyant et rusé ami m’avoua pourtant posséder dans ses stocks suffisamment de matière première non déclarée lors de la requisition.’Arno Breker, Paris, Hitler et Moi (Paris : Presses de la Cité, 1970), 134 – 136. 19. Richard Vinen, The Unfree French  : Life Under the Occupation (London : Allen Lane, 2006), pp.111–112. 20. Elisabeth Lebon, Dictionnaire des fon- deurs de bronze d’art, France 1890-1950 = Dictionary of art bronze founders, France 1890 – 1950 (London : Sladmore Editions, 2014), pp.156 – 158. 21. E. Robecchi to Picasso, 17 February, 14 May, 3 July, 14 August and 14 October 1941, private archive, Paris. 22. E. Robecchi to Picasso, 12 January, 20 February, 2 April and 20 September 1942, private archive, Paris. 23. Spies, Picasso, The Sculptures, nos. 238II, 236II and 181II. 24. Sanders, ‘Economic Draining’, pp.136– 168. 25. Jean Cocteau, ‘Le métal est comme de l’or’, Journal 1942 – 1945 (Paris : Éditions Gallimard, 1989), entry for Monday, 29 June 1942, p.171. 26. ‘Moulage à l’atelier de l’artiste… plâtre de après terre’, E. Robecchi to Picasso, 5 April 1943, private archive, Paris. 27. Spies nos. 280 & 136. 28. E. Robecchi to Picasso, invoice and receipt, 5 April 1943, private archive, Paris. 29. Brassaï credited Jaime Sabartés with encouraging Picasso to cast the plaster sculptures of the early 1930s in more durable bronze. Sabartés began working for Picasso in 1935 on his return from South America. He had gone to Buenos Aires in 1904, settled in Guatemala in 16. Ibid., pp.141–142. Clare Finn : Picasso’s casting in bronze during World War II 7 NOTES 1906, returned briefly to Barcelona and Paris in 1927, before going to Uruguay. Thus he was not involved in Picasso’s early casting. In mid-January 1937 Sabartés and Picasso fell out and Sabartés stopped working for him. He returned to Picasso’s employ after the end of September 1938, after the signing of the Munich Pact. Brassaï, Picasso & Co., 51 ; Dictionary of Artists Models, ed. Jill Berk Jiminez (Abingdon : Routledge, Oxon, 2001), pp.477–479 ; Pierre Daix, Dictionnaire Picasso (Paris : Robert Laffont, 1995), pp.805– 806 ; Jaime Sabartés, Picasso, An Intimate Portrait (New York : Prentice-Hall, 1948), pp.137–142. 30. Brassaï, Picasso & Co., 48. 31. David Pryce-Jones, Paris in the Third Reich : A History of the German Occupation 1940 – 1944 (New York : Holt, Rinehart & Wilson, 1981), p.259. 32. Vinen, The Politics of French Business, p.142. Colloque Picasso Sculptures Clare Finn : Picasso’s casting in bronze during World War II 8 LES SCULPTURES À NOTRE-DAME-DE-VIE Christine Piot • Colloque Picasso Sculptures • 25 mars 2016 À Notre-Dame-de-Vie, à Mougins – ultime demeure, ultime atelier de Picasso – une grande part de ses sculptures occupait la vaste pièce voûtée, en rezde-jardin. Et toutes – plâtres, bronzes, tôles peintes en grand format avec la Femme au vase de 1933 (cf. – semblaient comme veillées, gardées par les hauts note 2). Le talon clairement levé de sa jambe droite5 moulages des deux « Esclaves » de Michel-Ange, L’Es- fait presque de cette figure une « femme qui marche », clave rebelle et L’Esclave mourant (aujourd’hui revenus ou qui s’apprête à marcher, à bouger, dans l’aplomb au musée Picasso d’Antibes). Là était l’atelier de sculp- de sa verticalité même… Quelque part entre l’Homme ture… Quelques œuvres se nichaient ailleurs, dans qui marche de Rodin (avant 1900), et l’Homme qui d’autres pièces de la maison, jusqu’au second étage. Et marche de Giacometti (en 1960) 6… Des plâtres de la des plâtres en morceaux gisaient encore à même le sol, Femme au vase de Picasso – plâtre original et plâtre dans un local annexe. Certaines sculptures, comme de fonderie –, il ne subsiste que les deux bras droits l’original de la Femme au jardin de 1929-1930 , étaient tenant l’urne, comme pour une Reine de coupe, dans restées à la villa La Californie, à Cannes. un jeu de cartes surréaliste. Il ne restait rien au château de Vauvenargues, si ce Pour la Figure ou construction métallique de 19287 n’est la fresque peinte au-dessus de la baignoire et le (ill. 2), dont il existe aujourd’hui trois agrandisse- bronze de la Femme au vase , sur la tombe de Picasso. ments8, l’original se trouvait, accroché nettement 1 2 en hauteur par Picasso, au montant d’une porte en Sculpter commence souvent par « gâcher du plâtre », bois9, près de la toile des Toits de Barcelone de 190310, selon cette belle expression française, qui signifie sim- où les blocs bleus contrastaient avec la construction plement : délayer du plâtre avec de l’eau. aérienne à proximité. Suspendue en l’air, cette Figure Voilà une Pomme cubiste de 1909 (ill. 1), non tirée en alors sans socle laissait passer la lumière de part en bronze, comme un certain nombre de plâtres. Dans ses part un peu comme un mobile de Calder. Picasso et Conversations avec Picasso4, Brassaï raconte : « Nous Calder vont, chacun de leurs côtés, faire des figurines regardons mes anciennes photos de ses sculptures. en fil de fer, à la fin des années 1920 et au début des Picasso : Elles étaient bien plus belles en plâtre… Au années 193011. Ils se retrouveront présents ensemble début, je ne voulais pas entendre parler de les couler au pavillon espagnol de l’Exposition internationale de en bronze. Mais Sabartès ne cessait de me répéter : 1937, où l’étonnante Fontaine de mercure de Calder se “Le plâtre est périssable […] Le bronze est pour tou- trouve au centre du patio, devant Guernica12. 3 jours…” » Dans son atelier de Boisgeloup, sur le thème peint, Le 25 octobre 1943, Brassaï consigne13 : « Picasso veut dessiné et sculpté de baigneuses en plein air, Picasso me montrer la vitrine, ou, comme Sabartès l’appelle, semble jongler avec poids et volumes. Il le démontre le “musée”. Grande armoire métallique et vitrée placée dans une petite pièce contiguë à l’atelier, fermée à clé », vitrine remplie d’œuvres de Picasso, mêlés à des objets, dont, entre autres, deux moulages de la Colloque Picasso Sculptures Christine Piot : Les sculptures à Notre-Dame-de-Vie 1 fétiche de sorcellerie. […] Comme toutes les sculptures de l’île de Pâques, celle-ci dégage une impression de solitude qui n’a d’équivalent que celle de l’île elle-même, perdue au cœur du Pacifique et dont la Vénus de Lespugue (ill. 3). Cette vitrine se retrouvait civilisation est demeurée un mystère. » dans l’ancienne salle à manger de Notre-Dame-de-Vie, Le bois de toromiro, ou Sophora toromiro, est un bois avec un contenu un peu modifié. Les bois taillés au précieux d’un rouge brunâtre, spécifique à l’île de canif15, en septembre 1930, de statuettes féminines Pâques. Sur une feuille de papier, Picasso a fait quatre longilignes, assises ou debout, y reposaient aux côtés croquis de cette main remplissant la page, manière de leurs répliques en bronze . Picasso a sculpté ces pour lui de se l’approprier, de la faire sienne, comme femmes dans de longs bois si aiguisés que la tête la à son habitude22. plus fine d’entre elles, comme une allumette, avait Avec Brassaï, il revient sur l’assemblage de la tête de cassé (sur un peu plus d’un centimètre) … Comment taureau de 1942, de la même époque que la Femme en ne pas songer là à la démarche d’un Giacometti, qui ne robe longue : « Ce qui est merveilleux dans le bronze, cessera d’enlever, de gratter de la matière, jusqu’à l’os ? c’est qu’il peut donner aux objets les plus hétéroclites En bas de la vitrine, un avant-bras en bois de toro- une telle unité qu’il est parfois difficile d’identifier miro, de l’île de Pâques, deviendra le bras gauche de les éléments qui l’ont composé. Mais c’est aussi un la Femme en robe longue, en 1943 . danger : si l’on ne voyait plus que la tête de taureau En 1946, Brassaï fera deux photographies d’une et non la selle de vélo et le guidon qui l’ont formée, mise en scène de la Femme en robe longue, habillée cette sculpture perdrait de son intérêt23. » d’une blouse de peintre, la palette à la main, avec Un seul cliché de Brassaï24 (ill. 5) montre un assem- deux grands pinceaux aux airs de banderilles, devant blage éphémère – une sorte d’« installation » avant la L’Aubade de 1942 lettre – de la main en bois posée sur la tête de taureau 14 16 17 18 19 (ill. 4)… D’une femme peintre, l’autre ? De Dora à Françoise ? de manière à masquer ses yeux… L’assonance des Mais que dit Picasso de cette Femme en robe longue, en mots toro et miro (« je regarde » en espagnol) résonne 20 1943 ? Il s’adresse à Brassaï  : « Qu’est-ce que vous pen- comme un calembour visuel, miro étant en français sez de ce personnage ? Un jour, au marché aux puces, un vieux mot familier pour « voir mal » (et surgissent j’ai déniché un mannequin “haute couture” 1900, […] alors la Célestine et le Chanteur aveugle de 1903, le merveilleusement sculpté, le buste haut, le derrière Minotaure aveugle de 1935, et d’autres.) rebondi, sans bras ni tête… Le bras gauche vient de l’île Miro, c’est aussi Joan Miró, dont Picasso avait deux de Pâques – un cadeau de Pierre Loeb –, le bras droit et toiles, un Autoportrait de 1919 et le Portrait d’une la tête sont de moi… Je n’ai fait que les ajuster… » danseuse espagnole de 192125. Picasso et Miró colla- Dans Voyages à travers la peinture, Pierre Loeb évoque borent tous deux au pavillon espagnol de l’Exposition ainsi cet « avant-bras avec sa main » 21  : « Taillé dans un bois très dur […]. On ne sait ce qu’avait pu être cet objet. […]. C’était probablement un sceptre ou un Colloque Picasso Sculptures Christine Piot : Les sculptures à Notre-Dame-de-Vie 2 internationale de 1937, Miró, avec le grand panneau de El Segador, Le Faucheur26, disparu par la suite (le ciment de la Femme au vase de 1933 aurait-il pu subir le même sort tragique ?). Le Faucheur est aussi une 2016, l’exposition et le catalogue Picasso. Sculptures sculpture de Picasso de 1934 . juxtaposent et confrontent la terre cuite originale et Quand Picasso fait son unique ready-made, la Vénus le bronze peint en blanc37 : ils offrent un aspect sem- du gaz28, en janvier 1945, avec un brûleur de cuisi- blable et tendent à se confondre. Ce masque blanc nière à gaz, il se souvient peut-être d’avoir vu l’Objet rappelle aussi la face lunaire des masques du Gabon du couchant de Miró, de 1935-1936 , reproduit dès mukuyi et tsogho, à la poudre de kaolin et à l’argile 1938 dans le Dictionnaire abrégé du surréalisme  : soit blanche, que Picasso avait gardés38. Et quand Picasso un brûleur à gaz sur un billot de bois (peint en rouge), développe ses sculptures en tôle, à partir de 1960, il avec un ressort de sommier, des ficelles et une chaîne. les fait souvent peindre en blanc – tel ce Pierrot assis39 La Vénus du gaz de Picasso serait alors un double clin – avant de les rehausser, ou pas. d’œil, à Duchamp et à Miró… Au sujet du retour de la couleur blanche, en sculpture 27 29 30 comme en peinture, comment ne pas rappeler ici l’exAutre feinte – feinte ou leurre (à la pêche : amorce fac- position et le catalogue Picasso. Black and White, sous tice munie d’un hameçon) ? : la Tête de la Femme en robe la direction de Carmen Gimenez au Guggenheim de longue est à elle seule un bronze peint, sur un socle en New York, fin 2012 ? Elle explorait aussi les intermé- bois . Il existe aussi un cliché de Brassaï, où l’on voit diaires du noir et blanc, les déclinaisons en grisaille40… 31 cette tête sur ce même socle en bois, avant peinture32. En la peignant, Picasso veut-il introduire un leurre ? Ne Un autre peintre ou sculpteur aurait-il peint les pourrait-on pas croire, à première vue, que cette tête est bronzes, avant ou à la même époque que Picasso ? en céramique ? Comme les grandes têtes en céramique Giacometti a peint des plâtres et des bronzes. Ses de 1948-1950, la Tête de femme à la résille et la Tête plâtres peints furent exposés à la galerie Maeght, de femme au nœud  ? Le fait est que, pour cette Tête de en juin-juillet 198441. Pour le petit plâtre d’Annette femme peinte, le bronze s’évanouit sous la couverture offrant un bouquet de fleurs de 195642, les fleurs sont du maquillage. Au sujet des six Verres d’absinthe de 1914 peintes, telles de vraies fleurs, en jaune, rouge et bleu. – les premiers bronzes peints34 –, Werner Spies observe Les traits du visage et du corps sont aussi rehaussés, déjà : « Le fait que les Verres d’absinthe soient peints de même que pour deux Femme debout, vers 194943. annule le matériau qui disparaît ainsi sous la couleur35. » Et les bronzes ? La Femme couchée qui rêve, bronze Une Figure de 1907 en bois sculpté, sorte de poupée peint en blanc, paraît en 1929 dans le numéro 4 de cubiste, est teintée en blanc36. Un bronze du Masque la revue Documents, avec un texte de Michel Leiris44. de femme de 1908 est lui aussi peint en blanc ; en Cela n’a pu échapper à l’œil de lynx de Picasso. 33 Vers le centre de l’atelier de sculpture, à Notre-Damede-Vie, il y avait une petite table en bois blanc, sur laquelle reposaient deux sculptures, de 196145 : le Colloque Picasso Sculptures Christine Piot : Les sculptures à Notre-Dame-de-Vie 3 profil cuivré d’une colombe et le profil d’un homme, un plâtre sur carton, très blanc, ultime autoportrait, prélude au Jeune peintre du 14 avril 197246 : un retour à la page blanche. Colloque Picasso Sculptures Christine Piot : Les sculptures à Notre-Dame-de-Vie 4 FIG. 1  PABLO PICASSO Pomme, 1909 plâtre original, 11,5 x 10 x 7,5 cm Musée national Picasso-Paris. MP242 © RMN-Grand Palais (musée Picasso de Paris)/Adrien Didierjean/Mathieu Rabeau © Succession Picasso, 2016 FIG. 4  BRASSAÏ La Femme à la palette dans l’atelier des Grands-Augustins, 1946 Epreuve argentique Musée national Picasso-Paris. MP1986-35 © RMN-Grand Palais (musée Picasso de Paris)/Franck Raux © Succession Picasso, 2016 © Estate Brassaï - RMN-Grand Palais FIG. 2  PABLO PICASSO Figure, 1928 Fil de fer et tôle, 60,5 x 15 x 34 m Musée national Picasso-Paris. MP265 © RMN-Grand Palais (musée Picasso de Paris)/Béatrice Hatala © Succession Picasso, 2016 FIG. 5  BRASSAÏ FIG. 3  BRASSAÏ La vitrine de l’atelier des Grands-Augustins, 1943 Epreuve gélatino-argentique, 23,5 x 17,5 cm Tête de taureau avec le bras provenant de l’île de Pâques, 1943-1946 Epreuve argentique, 17,7 x 24 cm Musée national Picasso-Paris. MP1996-215 © RMN-Grand Palais (musée Picasso de Paris)/Daniel Arnaudet © Succession Picasso, 2016 © Estate Brassaï - RMN-Grand Palais Musée national Picasso-Paris. MP1996-297 © RMN-Grand Palais (musée Picasso de Paris)/Mathieu Rabeau © Succession Picasso, 2016 © Estate Brassaï - RMN-Grand Palais Colloque Picasso Sculptures Christine Piot : Les sculptures à Notre-Dame-de-Vie 5 NOTES 1. Picasso. Sculptures, Musée Picasso-Paris, 2016, no 80, p. 136. 2. Spies 135. Pour la fresque peinte au-dessus de la baignoire, avec son Faune à la diaule, voir David Douglas Duncan, Picasso et Jacqueline, Genève, Skira, 1988, p. 184-185. 3. Picasso. Sculptures, op. cit., no 28, p. 76-77. 4. Brassaï, Conversations avec Picasso, Paris, NRF Gallimard, 1964, p. 65. 5. Picasso. Sculpture, New York, MoMA, 2015, no 67, p. 166-167. 6. Jane Mayo Roos, Auguste Rodin, Phaidon, 2011, p. 67-68. Alberto Giacometti, Fondation Giacometti, 2015, p. 212-213. 7. Picasso. Sculptures, op. cit., no 72, p. 128, 59,5 cm de haut (Spies 69). 8. L’agrandissement de 115 cm de haut se trouvait au second étage à Notre-Dame-deVie (Spies 69 A). Deux autres agrandissements ont été réalisés pour le musée Picasso-Paris en 1985 : l’un de 241 cm, l’autre de 480 cm de haut : cf. Picasso. Sculptures, op. cit., nos 75 et 76, p. 130-131. 9. Cf. David Douglas Duncan, L’Atelier silencieux, Paris, Fayard, 1976, p. 32-33. 10. Pierre Daix et Georges Boudaille, Picasso 1900-1906, Neuchâtel, Ides et Calendes, 1988, no IX.2, p. 218-219. 11. Cf. Alexander Calder, Les Années parisiennes 1926-1933, Centre Pompidou, 2009. Voir : III. Le Cirque, 1926-1931, IV. Premières sculptures linéaires en fer, V. Figures et têtes en fil de fer, 1927-1931. 12. Arnauld Pierre, Calder, La Sculpture en mouvement, Paris, Découvertes Gallimard, 1996, p. 46. Sur une autre photo, on voit Calder et Picasso, devant Guernica, au pavillon espagnol, in 1937, Exposition internationale des arts et des techniques, Centre Georges Pompidou, juin-août 1979, p. 18, Photo Archives Mnam. 13. Brassaï, Conversations…, op. cit., p. 91. 14. Picasso vu par Brassaï, Musée Picasso-Paris, juin-septembre 1987, RMN, no 31, p. 86. 15. Paul Eluard, À Pablo Picasso, Genève-Paris, Éditions des Trois collines, Colloque Picasso Sculptures 1947, p. 93 : la photographie (de Brassaï ?) de deux statuettes sur socles (en bronze), Spies 86 et 97, porte la mention « Sculptures au canif ». 16. Cf. Picasso. Sculptures, op. cit., Femmes assises et Femmes debout, septembre ou automne 1930, sapin sculpté, nos 82 à 91, p.148 à 151. 17. Spies 87. 18. Spies 238. 19. Picasso vu par Brassaï, op. cit., p. 84-85 et no 41, p. 96-97. L’Aubade, 1942, est au Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris. 20. Brassaï, Conversations…, op. cit., p. 67. 21. Pierre Loeb, Voyages à travers la peinture, Bordas, 1946, p. 30. 22. Pierre Loeb, op. cit., p. 36, pl. VII. La page de croquis est datée « 13 (?) décembre 45 » et signée Picasso (probablement en cadeau à Pierre Loeb). William Rubin la reproduira, avec la Femme en robe longue, dans Primitivism in 20th century art, 1984, New York, MoMA, vol. 1, p. 330. 23. Brassaï, Conversations…, op. cit., p. 67. 24. Picasso vu par Brassaï, op. cit., p. 144145. Cf. Brassaï/Picasso, Conversations avec la lumière, Musée Picasso-Paris, RMN, 2000, p. 202, no 145, épreuve 78, p. 203, no 146. 25. Hélène Seckel-Klein, Picasso collectionneur, Paris, RMN, 1998, nos 56 et 57, p. 180-185. 26. Janis Mink, Joan Miró, Taschen, 1993/2016, p. 66-67 : Le Faucheur, 1937, huile sur celotex, 550 x 365 cm (disparu). 27. Spies 234. Picasso. Sculptures, op. cit., no 74 p. 173 : plâtre original. 28. Spies 2000, 302 A. ; cf. étude pour la Vénus du gaz, 19.1.45, p. 216. Dans son Histoire de l’art matérielle et immatérielle, Larousse, 2011, p. 219, Florence de Mèredieu fait une distinction pertinente entre les démarches de Duchamp et de Picasso. Avec la Vénus du gaz (qui n’a, me semblet-il, jamais été montée sur socle ?) : « La démarche est toutefois ici strictement inverse de celle de Duchamp. Le porte-bouteilles, l’urinoir ou la roue de bicyclette ne Christine Piot : Les sculptures à Notre-Dame-de-Vie ressemblent pas au départ à des Duchamp. Ils sont tout au contraire, choisis ou désignés en raison même de leur banalité, de leur statut d’objet quelconque et parfaitement anonyme. Le brûleur de Picasso est, a contrario, tout de suite repéré comme étant “du Picasso”, désigné et signé par avance. On est plus près ici du phénomène de la rencontre ou du hasard objectif des surréalistes que de la démarche très conceptuelle de Duchamp. » 29. Miró, la collection du Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1999, no 19, p. 86-87. 30. Dictionnaire abrégé du surréalisme, 1938, p. 70. 31. Picasso. Sculptures, op. cit., no 145, p. 208. 32. Conversations avec la lumière, op. cit., no 128 p. 186, épreuve n° 22. 33. Musée Picasso, Paris, Catalogue sommaire des collections, vol. I, RMN, 1985, no 451 p. 206-207 : Tête de femme à la résille, 30 avril 1948, H. 40 cm et no 456 p. 208, H. 37 cm. La seconde reproduite in Marilyn McCully, Picasso peintre et sculpteur sur argile, Paris, Éditions de La Martinière, 1999, n° 57 p. 101. Et Tête de femme au nœud : cette dernière, p. 62-63, H. 37 cm, figure aussi en couverture du boîtier de : Céramiques de Picasso, photos Éric Baudouin, textes Marilyn Mc Cully, Images modernes, Paris, 1999, 2 vol. 34. Picasso. Sculptures 2016, op. cit., nos 39 à 44, p. 88 à 93. 35. Spies 2000, op. cit., p. 84. 36. Spies 16. À Notre-Dame-de-Vie, cette poupée cubiste se trouvait dans un saladier en verre. 37. Picasso Sculptures 2016, op. cit., no 22, p. 60 : original en terre cuite, 1908 ; no 23, p. 61 : bronze peint en blanc, fonte Valsuani, 1957. 38. Picasso collectionneur, op. cit., no 87 p. 238-239 ; no 95, p. 250-251. 39. Spies 604. 40. Carmen Gimenez, Picasso. Black and White, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 5 octobre 2012-23 janvier 2013. 6 NOTES 41. Alberto Giacometti, Plâtres peints, galerie Adrien Maeght, 21 juin-27 juillet 1984, non paginé, « Les plâtres d’Alberto Giacometti », texte d’Alain Kirili, juin 1984 (publié en partie en janvier-février 1979 in Art in America). 42. Alberto Giacometti, musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, 30 novembre 1991-15 mars 1992, no 144, p. 245. 43. Alberto Giacometti 1991, op. cit., nos 142-143, p. 243-244. 44. Alberto Giacometti 1991, op. cit., no 43 p. 130-131. Reproduit in Leiris & Co, Gallimard-Centre Pompidou-Metz, 2015, p. 89. 45. En couverture de L’Atelier silencieux de David Douglas Duncan, op. cit., voir aussi la légende p. 9 : Autoportrait, 1960, plâtre sur carton, 43 x 31 x 0,5 cm. 46. Picasso !, Musée Picasso-Paris, 2015, p. 427. Colloque Picasso Sculptures Christine Piot : Les sculptures à Notre-Dame-de-Vie 7 THE PARADOX OF THE PICTORIAL IN PICASSO’S LATE SCULPTURE Christine Poggi • Colloque Picasso Sculptures • 25 mars 2016 “Modern sculpture — the painter Picasso, without in any way throwing away his brushes, is undoubtedly going to execute some important sculptural works.” André Salmon, Paris-Journal, 11 January 1912 inoperative, and hence perspicuous ; it also called attention to the ways in which sculpture, however “Sculpture is the best comment that a painter can make much it occupied real or cubic space, remained an art on painting.” of visual illusion addressed to a beholder who was Pablo Picasso, as reported by Renato Guttuso in his also contingently situated in space. journal, 1946 Although Picasso’s interest in transgressing the planar P 1 dimension through a series of unorthodox translations ainter/sculptor : this hybrid term has come occurs throughout his career, here I discuss five less to characterize Pablo Picasso, the artist who well-known, but still paradigmatic sculptures. Rather invented Cubist collage and relief construction, than examine the relation of the artist’s preliminary ironworks that function as “drawings in space,” and drawings to these works, I focus on the ways they other forms of sculpture that explore the paradoxes signify the pictorial as such. For in executing his of pictorial devices projected into three-dimensional sculpture, Picasso often seems to ask : what would space. As André Salmon noted in January 1912, in happen if the devices of classical picture making conceiving a series of new sculptures (which at that — the production of illusion on a flat, delimited, point existed only as drawings in his sketchbooks), window-like surface through single-point perspective, Picasso did not plan to throw away his brushes. The drawn contours, color and value contrasts, fictive three constructed Guitars that followed in the fall of shadows, and even the supplement of the frame — 1912 include pictorial elements such as fragments of were transposed into the three-dimensional world of painted canvas and colored papers ; drawing in the sculptural objects ? What if the paper, wood, or sheet form of cut contours, folded edges, and taut strings ; metal surfaces of a planar sculpture became supports and paper and cardboard planes that in some cases for painting and drawing, causing real and depicted serve as fields for further figuration. What allowed shapes and shadows to diverge ? Or if the virtual Picasso to traverse the mediums of painting (or space of the picture plane became real, transparent drawing) and sculpture was an interest in the meta- because it was in fact an open void ? What if drawing languages of visual representation, in “laying bare — comprising lines that define virtual contours and the device,” to use a phrase coined by the Russian internal edges, chiaroscuro, or even the free vector linguistic Viktor Shklovsky in 1917. To stage, in illusory space — took on the mass, weight, and reconfigure, or materialize pictorial norms in sculpture resistance of a specific material : string, wire, iron was to displace them, to render these norms strangely rods, a tree branch, or clusters of nails ? Could the 2 frontality, unity, and simultaneity of painting’s axial mode of address be paradoxically retained, but made to operate sequentially, in the round, through Colloque Picasso Sculptures Christine Poggi : The Paradox of the Pictorial 1 in perspective. As such, the curve at the upper left of Guitar reads as slightly distorted, although this distortion becomes a material rather than purely visual fact. The longer we look at this doubled edge, the more two a succession of planar, but folded and tilted, always profiles fail to cohere, an effect emphasized by Picas- partial views ? And finally, what if the temporality of so’s illogical modeling (the crude shading at the top changing perceptions and the contingency of objects left of the projecting curve, a zone that should catch seen in variable conditions of light entered the the light). The inner, drawn contour also makes the viewer’s experience, through a sculptural instantiation guitar seem to swivel to the viewer’s right, exposing of painterly devices ? more of the left side of the work than a purely frontal Picasso’s interest in actualizing pictorial conditions view would provide ; but this orientation is contra- and techniques of illusion emerges clearly in two of dicted by the fact that the central projecting plane, his earliest constructed Guitars of fall 1912 (figs. 1 bearing the guitar’s cut sound hole traversed by three and 2). These works, assembled out of intercut and drawn strings, clearly tilts to our left. This projecting cantilevered planes, hang on the wall from a loop plane also undergoes a form of perspectival diminu- of twine, like pictures or reliefs ; they nevertheless tion, paradoxically rendered literal, as its sides recede destabilize the frontality, unity, and fictive trans- toward the top, where it vanishes beneath a folded parency of the picture plane as the very ground of fingerboard that reverses this effect. representation. Picasso treated his paper and card- In the other small Guitar (fig. 2), Picasso made the board elements as both depicted shape and literal four strings converge as they descend toward a picto- support, subjecting them to cutting, folding, rolling, rial vanishing point below the sound hole, again ren- tilting, multiplication, notching, and perforation. He dered actual ; the strings literally disappear into the also pinned, nailed, glued, and sewed them together body of this inclined plane. Picasso also affixed two with often deliberately crude techniques, in order to strips of blue laid paper, the kind usually employed as emphasize their anti-illusory, handmade qualities and a support for fine art drawing, to either side of a split material contingency. frontal plane of Guitar. In addition to introducing In one of these works, the artist drew and shaded an readymade color into the realm of sculpture, the blue oblique, overhead view of a guitar onto a plane that strips of paper evoke a once unified pictorial ground continues to read as flat, with its own literal, cut con- that has been divided, displaced, folded, and mis- tour (fig. 1). This oblique view emerges through the aligned. The blue laid paper strips also help to ren- linkage of a larger, external cut profile with an inte- der visible the asymmetry of the guitar’s right and left rior, drawn profile, that is, from two discordant modes sides. The right side is a bit smaller ; set further back, of drawing (cutting and wielding a pencil). But the it is also bent more strongly out of frontal alignment. drawn and shaded inner edge also alters the significance of the cut profile, throwing it back in space so that it registers as the distal contour of the guitar seen Colloque Picasso Sculptures Christine Poggi : The Paradox of the Pictorial 2 The literally projecting, angled fingerboard, however, turns in the opposing direction, suggesting that the guitar has been represented as if from divergent, oblique views. Picasso also implies a vertical inversion In an account of his visit to Picasso in Dinard during by making the upper curves of the guitar larger than the summer of 1928, Christian Zervos described the the lower curves. In both of these Guitars, figure and artist’s process of working with metal wire : “Picasso ground, literal and depicted elements, enter a zone of picks up a wire lying on the floor and proceeds to twist paradox and indeterminacy. it while chatting. Without doing anything specific, Picasso addressed a different set of pictorial devices after a few minutes, the wire sustained the imprint in Figure, executed sometime between 1928 and 1931 of a great sensitivity.” (fig. 3). This small sculpture stands upright on what Picasso was able to manipulate the cold but highly appear to be the angled components of a rectangular pliant metal, without requiring any tools, is aston- picture frame ; broken in two, the intersecting pieces ishing ; the iron wire appears to offer no resistance cannot, however, be reassembled. The discrepancy in to his twisting and turning, bending and knotting. In the length of the sides of the framing elements implies Figure, he employed several wires of varying gauge, that a section is missing, or that the parts came from including three thin rods left almost unaltered, as if to different frames. Unusually tall, this cast iron frame remind us of this element’s industrial form. now doubles as a pedestal, thereby effecting a para- If we follow the trajectory of a given line, starting at doxically literal translation of a pictorial device into the lower right, we can note that it begins in mid- a more properly sculptural one. Yet by tilting this air, as an energized free vector that contrasts with the structure back and to the left, and by giving it a third tectonic, leg-like strut of the frame/easel/pedestal, leg, Picasso also turned it into an easel supported on a static element resting on the ground. The surging a tripod. Tangled and knotted iron wires climb up, line spirals around this tilted, vertical bar ; then the through, and around this armature. These wire lines line leaps across the empty space behind the upright function as a form of inspired, even delirious, drawing frame to loop around the other leg, before springing that suggests the emergence of a figure in the round, upward, through and again behind the frame. To fol- in defiance of the flat, delimited pictorial space consti- low it further, we have to turn to the other side. But tuted by the frame/easel. Unlike Surrealist automatic even from the front, we can see that thin wires wrap drawing, Picasso’s muscular line never seems merely around the rising line, attaching it to the back end of to register an unconscious or passive impulse on a the projecting bar/frame, so that at this juncture the neutral sheet of paper. Instead his line emerges as a thick line offers support to the angled bar and vice willful force, one that enacts a charged relation both versa. Ascending further behind the frame, our seem- to its cast iron frame and to the void it marks. ingly animated line traces a body-evoking large oval, 3 The immediacy with which then descends back down and through to the front of the frame where it wraps around the left vertical leg/ strut ; finally it springs upward and hooks itself over Colloque Picasso Sculptures Christine Poggi : The Paradox of the Pictorial 3 fails to contain the lines that flow around and past its edges, eventually clustering over the uppermost boundary in evocation of a head. But if the bundle of lines at the summit of the sculpture hints at a head, the top edge of the frame from the front, then breaks then perhaps we can also see the top of the frame as off. Throughout its course, the line operates as a evoking shoulders and arms, or the whole framing, transgressive force that defies containment or deduc- upright rectangle as the schematic outline of a torso. tive rule by the tectonic frame. It begins by tracing Some of the studies for The Painter and His Model of lines in space that loosely evoke a body on two legs ; 1928 (Museum of Modern Art, New York) show a eventually it transforms itself into a picture hanging double-profile head — closely related to the painted wire that literally suspends itself from the front of the metal sculpture Head of 1928 — rising from the left frame, as if it somehow found itself on the wrong side corner of a similarly vertical, tall rectangle represent- of the work. This line has no single function or iden- ing a pedestal/torso seen in a complex relation to a tity and it does not even describe the contour of the curved-back chair presented from the side. figure its spinning trajectory intermittently calls into Could Figure similarly represent a painter caught up being. It moves freely and without definite rupture in his picture frame/easel even as he draws himself between allusive and literal, figurative and object- into existence, as well as a sculptor intertwined with, like operations. Open space permeates both the lin- and escaping from, the quadrature of a pedestal — ear whorls and their frame/easel/pedestal, rendering the artist becoming a work of art ? Certainly the stud- figure/ground (or figure/environment) distinctions ies for The Painter and His Model of 1928 (as well as ambiguous. Other lines function similarly ; at times the painting) ask us to consider a series of perplexing they seem self-propelled, and even break off sud- metamorphoses : from an abstracted, planar model at denly, as if flaunting their lack of completion. But at left, to a more naturalistic, but purely linear profile on other times, they serve structural ends, calling atten- a canvas at center (which ironically evokes classical tion to their tensile strength as well as their pondera- sculpture), to the painter (who resembles the model) bility ; or they may seem to revert to passive material, converted into a sculptural head on a tripod at the as when the artist wraps or bends them tightly into right. Figure enacts a related metamorphosis of picto- place. The longer one looks, however, the more diffi- rial devices into sculptural terms in what may be seen cult it becomes to make such distinctions. The wires as a humorous reversal of the well-known theme of gyrate and twist into whorls that are both figurative the artist whose desire brings the beautiful woman he and structural, delineating virtual forms in space and is painting or sculpting to life. A final reversal occurs simultaneously anchoring one another through loops, when we attend to the shadows cast by Figure, which knots, and hooks. rotate the work’s vertically rising, three-dimensional The frame/easel itself can be read as a drawn contour, ironically positioned in an open, unbound space (as if it were a pedestal). It delineates a pictorial limit that Colloque Picasso Sculptures Christine Poggi : The Paradox of the Pictorial 4 lines onto a flat, horizontal register. Thus grounded, the iron drawing in space assumes new, condensed and displaced shapes that nonetheless read as indexical signs of the opaque sculptural elements that pro- of the difference between supporting and supported ject them. elements, between framing structure/base and figure, Picasso executed Figure and his other twisted, sol- between scaffolding and interpenetrating light and air. dered, and welded sculptures at a time of renewed One might even see the thin straight wires in Figure as interest in iron as a material associated with a modern allusions to what were once regarded as unsightly tie- aesthetic sensibility. We can gain a sense of this inter- rods in earlier iron scaffolding. What better medium est from the publication of Sigfried Giedion’s Building then, than the iron of the engineers with which to in France, Building in Iron, Building in Ferro-Concrete enact a translation of painting’s virtual devices into in early June 1928. In his book, Giedion celebrates the three-dimensional, but fluid and interpenetrating the dense molecular structure, tensile strength, and forms of the new building, the new construction ? pliancy of iron, which allows it to facilitate the con- Picasso, however, with his love of deviation and asym- struction of enormous spaces without heavy stone metry, of inclined planes and non-orthogonal boxes, masonry, thereby opening architecture to the circu- of forms that defy known functions, behaved more lation of air and light, and to the interpenetration of like a tinkerer or bricoleur than an engineer. In 1938 interior and exterior. Whereas earlier, nineteenth-cen- he executed a doll-like figure out of a series of found tury debates on the aesthetic merits of iron had often and repurposed objects, combined with drawn and centered on its lack of mass, and hence its inability to painted wooden elements. From a distance, the girl’s create corporeal, monumental architecture, Giedion head appears to be an open, three-sided box, with saw possibilities for a new kind of beauty in iron’s the nose and right eye, the left eye, and the mouth reduction of mass to surface and pure, linear scaffold- inhabiting divergent planes. On closer inspection, the ing. Many mid- and late-nineteenth century critics viewer realizes that the facial plane is flat ; the illu- opposed the use of iron precisely because the nature sion of depth arises from the cut shape of the “picture of the material — “its fleshless thinness” and “incor- plane” on which Picasso drew the internal edges of a poreal lines” — precluded a clear expression of the trihedron, painting each section a different color — distinction between weight-bearing post and load.4 In blue, white, and yellow — to further distinguish their contrast, Giedion delighted in this overcoming of an spatial positions. Cut edge and depicted edge function obsolete tectonics, declaring that, “Instead of the rigid relationally, but they also yield different perspectival balance of support and load, iron demands a more readings. If it is possible to see the box as an open complex, more fluid balance of forces.” Picasso’s volume, with the yellow plane at right paradoxically Figure enacts these new principles in its disruption narrowing as it converges toward the observer, one 5 can also see the box as closed, with the yellow plane receding into depth. If the box appears as a closed form, offering us its exterior walls, then the mouth Colloque Picasso Sculptures Christine Poggi : The Paradox of the Pictorial 5 metaphorical slippage occurs on the reverse, where Picasso placed the semicircular, severed parts of a push-bell, a sound-making device, on either side of the girl’s head ; they stand in for her ears, open to the must be sited on its white, lower plane, projecting world. Even the interior of each “ear” received pic- downward. It is the optical presence of the receding torial treatment, one painted black, the other white. yellow side that Picasso acknowledges in setting the Painting appears everywhere, in the roughly and vertically aligned mouth, nose, and tuft of yellow rope sometimes highly textured application of pigment to for hair to the right of center within the blue section, various surfaces, the decorative pattern on the girl’s as if these features too are further away, receding into torso/dress, and on the base of the work, where a depth. (Nose and mouth are nonetheless centered vis- green hue evokes grass. Picasso covered the sides of à-vis the facial plane as a whole.) Yet the eyes, mouth, the cut, wooden plane of the head with thick black and nose, made of screws, wires, and the metal join paint, recoding it as a drawn contour ; in contrast, he of a paintbrush, remain rigidly frontal and pictorial in applied broad, loose swatches of white (the color of their mode of address, in contradiction with either of classical sculpture) to the back of the head, allowing the illusory perspectival views. the wood to show through what is by now, a thor- While Picasso made the figure’s nose out of the fer- oughly pictorial surface. rule of a paintbrush, he constructed her arms and Indeed Picasso drew, painted, or otherwise worked on hands out of the fragments of two wooden paintbrush the sides and backs of most of his sculptures, often in handles. He nailed the right arm, painted sloppily in humorous ways that bring out or multiply specific fea- bright purple and white, to the top back of the fig- tures. With Bull of 1958, the artist insinuated a back ure’s cylindrical torso, whereas he affixed the left view of the bull’s visage onto its front, by enclosing arm, in white, green, and purple further down and the face within a small, empty stretcher nailed down forward, using nails and wrapped string. Misaligned in reverse (fig. 5). This mise en abyme makes the bull’s and attached with divergent techniques, the arms face into a picture within a picture, perhaps even a infuse the figure with a sense of anatomical disjunc- portrait. The cut shape of the bull’s horns, one smaller tion and spatial rotation. Depending on how we read than the other and set on a fictive diagonal, suggests the volume of her box-like head, she appears to turn they are forms turning in space, seen from behind.6 either to the right or to the left, but viewed in terms Picasso makes the plane of the face and the back view, of her arms, she is turning to our left. (Of course, such pictorial frontality and illusory depth, co-present in interpretations are too literal, as her paintbrush arms this internally divergent work. defy anatomical norms altogether.) Signifying both Various kinds of wood and palm, affixed to the surface childlike naiveté and sophistication, the brush han- of both sides of Bull, function as modes of drawing dles also realize the metaphorical link between the artist’s own arms and hands and the brushes with which he worked, even on his sculptures. A similar Colloque Picasso Sculptures Christine Poggi : The Paradox of the Pictorial 6 in shallow but real space : from the natural shapes of tree and palm branches, to the turned forms of furniture parts, to readymade lumber including simple boards and studs, some of which had a previous life ture, transforming this plane into a material object (as can be seen by the presence of stenciled letters). in space. The picture plane and its stretcher or frame Nails prove to be highly versatile elements ; driven emerge as tangible, material elements, just as the into the surface of Bull on both sides, they produce drawn line, appearing in the form of twisted wires, coloristic or atmospheric effects, the equivalent of curved branches, projecting nails, or cut edges, per- mottled shading. At times they serve to affix one ele- forms as both the trace of an action and as an object ment to another. The artist also bends nails around able to cast a shadow in its own right. These picto- branches, employing them almost like wire. And he rial structures appeal to our sense of sight as well lets them project as sharp points or lines that perfo- as touch. Moving around Picasso’s sculptures, one rate the picture plane on both sides. Similarly, two often encounters a sequence of aspects that seem long screws inserted into the bull’s face become eyes, to effect their own, albeit always partial, mode of their drooping shadows evoking tears. direct address. New alignments, interlaced profiles, The head itself with its decentered features tilts and contradictory views emerge as others fade. One slightly to the left ; it seems precariously held in place senses that these views are meant for us, that they by elements that read variously as drawn lines and acknowledge the temporally and spatially situated supporting bars or branches that pass to the right, observer. Rendering a three-dimensional object as it below, and before the reverse mounted stretcher/ is seen in perspective constitutes that object as medi- frame. Picasso represented the bull with four legs ated through vision. And it makes that visual mode attached to a horizontal base, but he also added a paradoxically available to tactile sensations. fifth leg to inject it with a sense of forward movement, Finally, Picasso’s sculptures bring to the fore his pref- even as the bull turns his framed face toward us. Both erence for the line of deviation, the angled plane, the sides of this sculpture are traversed by a crisscrossing tilted edge, the decentered element, the form that pattern of oblique lines and tilted planes. Even the bends and swerves, slipping into, or out of, our line tail, constructed from a rectilinear plank and attached of sight. These anti-tectonic forms resist the axial pla- rod, does not so much hang down as rise up on a diag- narity, stasis, symmetry, and unified coherence of the onal from the ground. classically defined painting or bas-relief sculpture. In Many of Picasso’s sculptures insist on being viewed their place they offer a complex interplay of the fictive from both sides, indeed from variable, sometimes and the real, the visual and the tactile, illusory mas- intersecting angles. They take the conventional fron- tery of the objects of perception and its dispossession. tal address of the picture plane as a point of depar- Colloque Picasso Sculptures Christine Poggi : The Paradox of the Pictorial 7 FIG. 3  PABLO PICASSO FIG. 1  PABLO PICASSO Guitar, fall 1912 Cut cardboard, cut and pasted papers including newspaper, canvas, string, tape, and pencil, 22 x 14.5 x 7 cm Musée national Picasso-Paris. MP245 Figure, c. 1928-1931 Iron and iron wire, 26 x 12.5 x 11.1 cm Musée national Picasso-Paris. MP271 ©Béatrice Hatala © Succession Picasso, 2016 ©Béatrice Hatala © Succession Picasso, 2016 FIG. 2  PABLO PICASSO Guitar, fall 1912 Cut cardboard, cut and pasted papers including brown paper, blue laid paper, and newspaper, canvas string, several kinds of tape, oil, and pencil, 33 x 18 x 9.5 cm Musée national Picasso-Paris. MP244 © Béatrice Hatala © Succession Picasso, 2016 Colloque Picasso Sculptures Christine Poggi : The Paradox of the Pictorial 8 FIG. 4  PABLO PICASSO Figure, spring 1938 Painted wood, nails, and screws with string wire, paintbrush fragments, and push-bell hardware on an unfired clay and wood base, 5,8 x 2 x 1,1 cm Private collection © Succession Picasso, 2016 FIG. 5  PABLO PICASSO Bull, April 1958 Blockboard (wood base panel), palm frond and various other tree branches, eyebolt, nails, and screws, with drips of alkyd and pencil markings, 144.1 x 117.2 x 10.5 cm The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Jacqueline Picasso in honor of the Museum’s continuous commitment to Pablo Picasso’s art. 649.1983 © Photograph by Christine Poggi © Succession Picasso, 2016 FIG. 4  Side view of Pablo Picasso, Figure, spring 1938 Colloque Picasso Sculptures FIG. 5  DETAIL OF HEAD OF PABLO PICASSO, BULL, 1958 © Photograph by Christine Poggi © Succession Picasso, 2016 Christine Poggi : The Paradox of the Pictorial 9 NOTES 1. Pablo Picasso, statement reported by Renato Guttuso, in Mario de Micheli, ed., Scritti di Picasso (Milan : Feltrinelli, 1964). 2. Viktor Shklovsky, “Art as Technique” (1917), in The Critical Tradition : Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends, ed. David H. Richter, trans. Lee T. Lemon and Marion Reis (Boston, MA : Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2006) : pp.774 – 784. 3. Christian Zervos, “Picasso à Dinard, été 1928,” Cahiers d’art 4, no. 1 (1929) : 5 – 6 ; cited in Ann Temkin and Anne Umland, Picasso : Sculpture, trans. Marion Tande (exh. cat. New York : The Museum of Modern Art, 2015), p.112. 4. Richard Streiter, Architektonische Zeitfragen (1898), cited in Sokratis Georgiadis, introduction to Sigfried Giedion, Building in France, Building in Iron, Building in Ferro-Concrete, trans. J. Duncan Berry (Santa Monica, CA : The Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1995), 29. For an account of these debates, see Georgiadis, Introduction to Giedion, Building in France, pp.1 – 12. 5. Giedion, Building in France, p.102. 6. See Study for Bull, a sheet with six sketches executed from the front, back and side, in : Temkin and Umland, eds., Picasso : Sculpture, 255, fig. 11. Colloque Picasso Sculptures Christine Poggi : The Paradox of the Pictorial 10 PICASSO’S TÊTE DE FEMME AND THE BETOGRAVE SCULPTURES Catherine Craft • Colloque Picasso Sculptures • 25 mars 2016 T he Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection in Dallas contains over three hundred works of mod- ern and contemporary sculpture, including seven by Picasso, one of which is the monumental concrete- gave Nesjar permission to base another wall on figures and-gravel Tête de femme (fig. 1 ; Spies 493A). Ray- from his 1946 painting Triptych. Picasso’s enthusiastic mond Nasher purchased the work in 2001, and it has response led Nesjar to make another proposal : to use been on display in the garden of the Nasher Sculp- the Betograve technique to create a large sculpture by ture Center since the museum opened in 2003. The Picasso. If the results failed to satisfy the artist, it was origins of the Nasher’s sculpture lie in a visit made agreed that the sculpture would be destroyed. to Picasso in January 1957 by the Norwegian artist The outcome was the three-meter-high Tête de femme, Carl Nesjar, who came to the South of France to ask now in the Nasher collection. Nesjar’s photographs of Picasso to make a lithograph for the Aktuell Kunst it (fig. 2) so pleased Picasso that the sculpture became society, started by the Workers’ Party of Norway to the first of more than a dozen monumental Betograve offer prints by subscription at reasonable prices. Intro- sculptures by Picasso made in collaboration with Nes- duced to Nesjar through a mutual acquaintance, the jar.2 Tête de femme’s experimental status as the first artist Eugène Fidler, and appreciating the democratic sculpture in the Betograve technique sets it apart impulse behind the concept, Picasso readily agreed. somewhat from the collaborations that would follow.3 Their conversation took an unexpected turn as Fidler Nesjar’s letters to Picasso, held in the Musée Picas- encouraged Nesjar to show Picasso photographs of the so’s archive, show the surprising speed with which new government building in Oslo with wall engrav- the two men developed a working relationship and ings that Nesjar had executed in Betograve, a new friendship after their introduction in January 1957. artistic process developed by the building’s architect, Three months later Nesjar wrote of his plans to return Erling Viksjø, and the engineer Sverre Jystad. to France to continue their lithography project.4 His In Betograve, forms packed tightly with gravel are visit to Picasso at La Californie in the summer proved filled with concrete ; upon drying, the concrete surface momentous : not only would Nesjar secure drawings can be sandblasted to reveal the underlying aggregate. for the Aktuell Kunst lithograph as well as the Oslo The artistic possibilities were considerable, as the government building wall engravings, but he would sandblasting could range from large areas to narrow also begin to talk seriously with Picasso about the pos- lines. Picasso was intrigued, and on Nesjar’s next visit, sibility of using the Betograve technique to make a Picasso agreed to allow him to use the Betograve tech- monumental sculpture. nique to make monumental engraved drawings based That their engagement expanded so profoundly on his work on walls of the Oslo government building. turned on two important factors. The first of these was Picasso would make four drawings for the project, and a change in Picasso’s work since he and Nesjar first 1 met at the beginning of the year. At the time of their introduction in the winter, Picasso was drawing and painting various subjects, including portraits of his Colloque Picasso Sculptures Catherine Craft : Picasso’s Tête de Femme 1 that would follow, the 1957 heads feature discrete planes slotted into place atop a vertical cylinder — or, in the case of Tête de femme (Spies 495), one of Joseph-Marius Tiola’s angular metal tubes. Spurred companion Jacqueline Roque, corrida scenes, and fan- by Picasso’s portraits of Roque, the sculptures in turn tastic heads and figures. By the time Nesjar returned fed the artist’s explorations of the motif in painting.9 in late June, Picasso had returned to making sculp- The second factor steering Nesjar’s summer conver- ture, with a small group of planar sculptures and a sations with Picasso toward discussion of monumen- number of related paintings based on the motif of the tal Betograve sculptures was photography. In Nesjar’s head of a woman. From this body of work would come letter of June 28, 1957, he mentions a conversation Tête de femme à la chevelure noire frisée, the painting with Picasso of the day before and makes plans to selected as the source of the Aktuell Kunst lithograph. visit the next day : Nesjar’s visits with Picasso thus Nesjar would take a drawing based on this painting coincided exactly with David Douglas Duncan’s pho- to the printer Fernand Mourlot in Paris after leaving tography sessions in Picasso’s studio, documenting, the South of France, and a photograph of Nesjar and among other things, Picasso’s engagement with the Picasso with the drawing subsequently circulated in two planar sculptures that would soon become the the Norwegian press as news of Picasso’s involvement dual sources of the Betograve Tête de femme : a steel in the government building project spread. Tête de femme also now in the Nasher Collection, and Lately revived in depictions of Roque, the motif of the lone wooden version of the five heads, now in the a woman’s head poised atop a long, slender neck Musée Picasso.10 Several of Duncan’s photos show was a subject with an extensive history in the art- Picasso painting the Nasher’s steel Tête de femme ; as ist’s oeuvre. Predecessors include the 1913 charcoal the other heads are visible in his photographs of the Personnage (Figure) of 1913 ; the brass-and-iron Tête studio from this visit, it seems likely that this was the (Head), 1928 ; 1943’s Buste de femme, made from last of the group of five, and Picasso’s last sheet-metal wire, string, and pencil on cardboard ; and La Femme sculpture until he took up the process again with à la clé (Woman with a Key), 1954 – 57, constructed Lionel Prejger some three years later. from fired clay and a real key, then cast in bronze. The The likely coinciding of Duncan’s and Nesjar’s visits last of these, with its elongated, tubular neck and life- introduces another reason for the selection of these size scale, may have particularly prompted Picasso to heads as models for the first Betograve sculpture. As undertake a further exploration of the motif. other scholars have noted, their kinship with Picasso’s In the spring and summer of 1957, Picasso made five previous work includes their relation to compositions sculptures featuring a woman’s head atop a long slen- such as the 1928 Head (mentioned above) that are in der pole (figs. 3 and 4). Rather than being folded, as turn associated with Picasso’s work on the Apollinaire 5 6 7 8 in the heads inspired by Sylvette David that preceded them, or punctuated with cut-out plays of positive and negative space, as in the sheet-metal sculptures Colloque Picasso Sculptures Catherine Craft : Picasso’s Tête de Femme 2 monument, the artist’s years-long attempt to create a large public sculpture. A 1929 painting11 merges a ferocious head with a gray monolith, with tiny figures beneath creating an impression of enormous scale. and the architectural project in Oslo spur his playful The parallels with such works heighten in the con- fantasies before Duncan’s camera ? Or did Picasso’s text of what are perhaps the best-known photographs ongoing immersion in the “Tête de femme” motif dur- from Duncan’s session, namely Picasso’s creation of a ing the spring and summer of 1957 revive thoughts of mise-en-scène for the Musée Picasso’s pole sculpture, monumental sculpture ? However the idea emerged, with cut-out figures, a feather-duster palm tree, and less than three weeks later, Nesjar was writing to a sketched backdrop on a blank canvas behind, trans- Picasso from Norway, “Il serait très interessant de faire forming the sculpture into a veritable maquette for an une sculpture en béton d’après une de vos sculptures enlarged, monumental piece.12 en fer…. Nous avons parlé de cinq à six metres envi- Photography was also an important part of Nesjar’s ron. Il s’agirait de trouver une dimension qui s’har- work — he used it extensively for documentation of monise avec celle de l’être humain. (Voyez photo, the Betograve projects, and his correspondence with sculpture no. 2.)” Picasso includes frequent mentions of photographs to France in the fall to bring Picasso a proof of the enclosed with his letters. Although Duncan does not lithograph from Paris to approve, he will make more mention Nesjar in his accounts, the photographer’s photos of this sculpture he and Picasso have chosen, shots of Picasso’s studio make it possible to establish as well as drawings of it for the enlargement. In late Nesjar’s concurrent presence.14 Several photographs August, however, he explains that an experiment in taken by Nesjar, usually dated to 1964 or 1965, show already underway : “Actuellement, nous sommes en Picasso at La Californie, bare-chested and sporting train de faire le coffrage d’une ‘sculpture épreuve’en a distinctively patterned pair of shorts or swimming demi-taille (3 mètres d’hauteur environ) d’après les trunks. Picasso wears them in the photograph with photos que j’ai fait chez vous.” 17 Nesjar and the Aktuell Kunst drawing, and in pho- In the garden of the architect Viksjø’s home outside tos taken in the studio that show Picasso alongside, Larvik and perhaps at his urging, Nesjar took advan- or gazing at, various pole sculptures ; in one, Picasso tage of the milder weather before winter’s onset to poses with the Nasher’s steel head, then still unfin- proceed, using the photos of Picasso pole sculptures ished. The sculpture is surrounded by the small cut- that he made during his previous visit as points of ref- out figures from the mise-en-scène with Duncan, and erence. He built wooden frameworks to contain the the lightly sketched backdrop on the blank canvas is gravel-and-concrete slab forming the planes of the still visible behind him.15 figure’s head, and mounted scaffolding to “souffler” Did Picasso’s exchanges with Nesjar about Betograve the head’s details (fig. 5).18 The experimental nature 13 16 He proposes that on his return of this trial run is apparent from photos of the fabrication in the Musée Picasso’s photo archives. In one, the facial features sketched on the proper left side of Colloque Picasso Sculptures Catherine Craft : Picasso’s Tête de Femme 3 painted very differently from each other, and from the cardboard maquette. In the Musée Picasso’s wooden head, the proper left side of the sculpture is a simple black or dark gray silhouette, recalling Picasso’s incluthe wooden form actually belong to the proper right sion of many such profiles in his two-dimensional profile of the source maquette, a reversal corrected in works. On the proper right — Nesjar’s source for the the final sculpture. In another photo, the treatment proper right profile of the Betograve Tête — a great of the cylindrical supporting post has been sketched staring eye gazes out at the viewer, but as the viewer in differently than seen in the final result. By October moves around the sculpture, a second, frontally ori- 27th 1957, work on the sculpture was likely complete, ented eye quickly comes into view, and in addition as Nesjar wrote to Picasso that he had a collection of to the profile, the countenance resolves into a staring photos of it to show him on his upcoming visit.21 Nes- skull. In the Nasher’s steel sculpture, Picasso became jar was reportedly unhappy with the sculpture and more elaborate with the proper left side, spreading had to be dissuaded by Viksjø from destroying the a combined profile and fully frontal face across the work, but when he showed Picasso the photos, the abutting sheets. The result is a series of often contra- artist was delighted.22 dictory views that nonetheless evoke a single head, The timeline reconstructed here from Nesjar’s corre- with the back of the sculpture conflating rear of the spondence and photos suggests that the Betograve head and profile, hair pulled back and both ears Tête de femme should be dated 1957 rather than improbably occupying the same plane. The virtuoso 1958. (In fact, after Nesjar’s letters from the fall left profile, which Nesjar would use for the proper left of 1957 and his visit to Picasso with photos of the profile of the Betograve work, contrasts strongly with work, all mention of the sculpture vanishes from his the more perfunctory, even childlike rendering of the correspondence.) Tête de femme’s status as an exper- right profile, a dichotomy previously deployed in the imental “sculpture épreuve” may also account for its folded steel busts of Sylvette David. composition, which combines aspects of the Nasher’s Although Nesjar’s letter of July 18 refers to “sculp- steel Tête de femme with those of the Musée Picas- ture no. 2” as the model for a proposed Betograve so’s wooden Tête de femme, both of which were made sculpture, it is not clear which sculpture he meant. from the same cardboard maquette, seen near the two “Sculpture no. 2” may refer to the Nasher’s steel head, heads in the photographs Duncan took of Picasso’s as it was the second sculpture to be made from the studio at the time of Nesjar’s visit. Disassembled, the templates of the cardboard maquette, and Picasso cardboard maquette shows three components that fit was completing it at the time of Nesjar’s visit. Instead, into the slits cut in the top of the tube. In assembly, the resulting “sculpture épreuve” combines aspects of the trapezoidal shape is placed squarely straight onto both this and its wooden sibling — the proper left 20 23 the pole, and the profile face is perpendicular to it, but the “back” of the head slots on at an angle. Despite their structural similarities, the two heads are Colloque Picasso Sculptures Catherine Craft : Picasso’s Tête de Femme 4 profile of the Nasher’s head and the proper right profile and banded pole of the Musée Picasso’s — and adds a few unique elements. The back view of the Betograve head, a contrast of smooth concrete and ing, he determined that three figures were too many exposed gravel, is not seen in either of the smaller for the wall, and so he removed one of them.24 Picasso sculptures, and the four planes of the head meet in approved of his decision after the fact, but he always the concrete version at right angles, whereas in the had the option to reject Nesjar’s efforts. smaller versions, the back plane, with the figure’s As many observers have noted, with their staring gathered hair, is set at an angle. gazes and disembodied heads poised like trophies Since Betograve was initially used on the flat surfaces atop poles, the 1957 Tête de femme sculptures have of walls, it was logical that Picasso’s planar sculptures a strongly totemic character. Their atavistic charac- would be selected as the starting point for a sculptural ter lends them an intensity belying their modest size, collaboration, since these sculptures shared with the and interestingly, Picasso’s further forays into monu- Norwegian technique a creative combination of mate- mental works included attempts to render all the pole rial, line, and flat image. In the sheet-metal sculp- sculptures at larger sizes. In 1965, Nesjar succeeded tures, Picasso used planar surfaces to generate works in executing a monumental version of Tête de femme confounding expectations of the continuous three-di- (Spies 650) in Sweden, and he likewise secured Picas- mensional contours typical of much modern sculp- so’s approval for Betograve versions of two of the ture. Each version of the Tête de femme sculptures other heads (Spies 494 and 495), although neither presents sharply delineated glimpses of individual project went forward.25 forms, which can pass quickly from one anatomical Picasso never saw any of the Betograve sculptures reference to another, an eye reconfiguring into an ear Nesjar made : their collaboration had its origins in with a slight shift in point of view. photography, and their working relationship would Nesjar unquestionably used the more striking of the continue to be negotiated with and through pho- profile views from each of the smaller sculptures, tographs. From the first, Nesjar worked from pho- and moving the back plane to a 90-degree position tographs of Picasso’s sculptures, as Picasso did not would have undoubtedly simplified construction of want him to remove the works from his studio. Nes- the sculpture as well as Nesjar’s sandblasting of the jar would then use photographs of the sculptures requisite areas. His manipulation of Tête de femme’s and of the prospective site to create a photomon- composition paralleled his procedure with the Oslo tage, showing the small work scaled up, for Picasso wall engravings : when Nesjar transferred the figures to approve with a signature and date. Nesjar would from Triptych onto the wall of the government build- base his fabrication on photographs and measurements of the maquette made during visits to Picasso, then send the artist photos of the resulting sculpture in situ for his final approval. The printmaking project that initially brought them together served as a Colloque Picasso Sculptures Catherine Craft : Picasso’s Tête de Femme 5 conceptual model for Picasso, who approved some of Nesjar’s photomontages with a notation usually reserved for prints : “bon à tirer.” 26 Tête de femme spent four decades in the garden of Viksjø’s summer house, and today still resides in a garden at the Nasher. In 2012 it underwent conservation. Due to concrete’s porosity, the metal armature inside the sculpture had begun to rust and swell, causing the concrete and gravel to pop off in two small areas. Fortunately, the Nasher’s then-conservator John Campbell was able to stop the rusting and put the detached pieces back into place. Considering all its years outdoors in the disparate climates of Norway and Texas and its status as the first attempt to make a monumental sculpture using a newly developed process, this “sculpture épreuve” has aged quite well. Colloque Picasso Sculptures Catherine Craft : Picasso’s Tête de Femme 6 FIG. 1  PABLO PICASSO Tête de femme, 1958 Gravel and concrete, 305.1 x 109.9 x 141.9 cm Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas. Spies 483A © Succession Picasso, 2016 FIG. 3  PABLO PICASSO Tête de femme, 1957 Painted steel, 77.2 x 34.9 x 25.7 cm Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas. Spies 492 © Succession Picasso, 2016 FIG. 4  PABLO PICASSO Tête de femme, 1957 Cut wood and paint, 78.5 x 34 x 26 cm Musée national Picasso-Paris, Dation Pablo Picasso, 1979. Spies 493. MP350 © RMN-Grand Palais (musée Picasso de Paris)/Mathieu Rabeau FIG. 2  PICASSO’S © Succession Picasso, 2016 betograve Tête de femme in the garden of Erling Viksjø’s summer home, Larvik, Norway, ca. 195 Colloque Picasso Sculptures Catherine Craft : Picasso’s Tête de Femme 7 NOTES 1. The first complete account of Nesjar’s collaboration with Picasso is Sally Fairweather, Picasso’s Concrete Sculptures (New York : Hudson Hills Press, Inc., 1982), which was based in part on extensive interviews with Nesjar ; her account of his meeting Picasso and their first work together is on pages 25 – 39. According to Sylvia A. Antoniou-Nesjar, who has subsequently published extensively on Nesjar and Picasso, Viksjø heard of Nesjar’s mission to secure a print for Aktuell Kunst and asked him to show Picasso photographs of the concrete work being done in the government building. Antoniou-Nesjar, “Sylvette in Concrete,” in Sylvette, Sylvette, Sylvette : Picasso and the Model (Munich : Prestel, 2014), p.198. 2. For a list of projects by Picasso and Nesjar, see Antoniou-Nesjar, “Sylvette in Concrete,” p.203. 3. Although Nesjar took photographs of (and, according to Sylvia A. Antoniou-Nesjar, filmed) its fabrication, there nonetheless remains less documentation of this first effort than of the sculptures that followed. Sylvia A. Antoniou-Nesjar, “Picasso dans l’espace publique,” in Picasso Sculptures (Paris : Musée national Picasso-Paris, 2016), p.276. 4. In his letter of 20 March 1957, Nesjar writes that he is planning to leave Norway on June 5 ; he also reminds Picasso of the details of the lithography project, adding, “Je peut chercher vos dessins chez vous et les amener à Mr. [Fernand] Mourlot pour arranger les formalités d’imprimerie.” Letter from Carl Nesjar to Pablo Picasso, May 20, 1957, Box 107 (Nesjar) ARPECB1040, Archives Picasso, Musée Picasso, Paris. 5. Private collection ; Zervos, XVII, p.344. 6. The archives of the Musée Picasso’s correspondence file for Nesjar includes a Norwegian newspaper clipping dated December 3, 1957 showing this photo, which is also reproduced in Fairweather, p.28. October 27. 7. See especially Elizabeth Cowling’s exploration of the motif’s history in Cowling, “Picasso’s Late Sculpture : Woman,” in Picasso’s Late Sculpture  : “Woman”. The Collection in Context (Malaga : Museo Picasso, 2009), pp.28 – 137. 8. The works, all titled Tête de femme, are as follows : Spies 492 (Nasher Sculpture Center) ; 493 (Musée Picasso) ; 494 (private collection), 495.II (Musée Picasso), and 650 (private collection). 9. Vérane Tasseau discusses the interplay of the sculptures and paintings, including Picasso’s use of a spotlight in his studio to project shadows of these sculptures onto blank canvases in her essay “Picasso ou l’utopie des sculptures-architectures,” in Picasso : In the Studio (Paris : Cahiers d’art, 2015), p.240. 10. Spies 492 and 493 ; Tasseau pinpoints Duncan’s photo sessions involving these works as occurring between June 27 and July 3, based on the photographer’s schedule and the paintings visible on the easels in his shots, one of which was Tête de femme à la chevelure noire frisée, the source for the Aktuell Kunst lithograph and dated June 27, 1957. Tasseau, “Picasso ou l’utopie des sculptures-architectures,” 240. The Nashers acquired their painted steel Tête de femme in 1997. Duncan published a group of the resulting photographs in The Private World of Pablo Picasso (New York : The Ridge Press, 1958). The Cahiers d’art publication also includes previously unpublished photos from these sessions. 12. Duncan, pp..142 – 145 ans p.157. 13. At some point, Nesjar’s photographs were separated from his letters and are now located in the Musée Picasso’s separate photo archives, but there does not seem to have been a record made of which photographs accompanied which letters. As Nesjar’s photographs are largely unannotated apart from indications of copyright, this makes the precise dating of photographs related to the first two years of their collaboration difficult. 14. It is entirely possible that Nesjar and Duncan met during Nesjar’s visit, as two letters from Nesjar in the following mon- ths include salutations to Duncan as well. Letters from Nesjar to Picasso, November 14, 1957 and March 4, 1958, Box 107 (Nesjar) ARPECB1040, Archives Picasso, Musée Picasso, Paris. 15. The photo of Picasso and Nesjar is in Fairweather, Picasso’s Concrete Sculptures, n. 5 ; the photo of Picasso with the Nasher’s steel head, unfinished, was published in Antoniou-Nesjar, “Sylvette in Concrete,” 201. Other published photos of Picasso by Nesjar from this same session, showing the artist with other pole sculptures, include : Nesjar, Pablo Picasso with his maquette [Spies 650] for Kristinehamm’s Head of a Woman,” in Picasso’s Late Sculpture  : “Woman”. The Collection in Context, p. 154 ; and “Picasso with maquette of Head of a Woman [Spies 495],” in Fairweather, 29. There are likely additional photos in Nesjar’s archive in Norway, which I was not able to consult ; the photograph of Nesjar and Picasso was perhaps taken by Roque using Nesjar’s camera, as she did on other occasions referenced in Nesjar’s letters. 11. Michael and Judy Steinhardt Collection ; Zervos VII, p.290. Colloque Picasso Sculptures Catherine Craft : Picasso’s Tête de Femme 8 NOTES 16. Letter from Nesjar to Picasso, July 18, 1957, Box 107 (Nesjar) ARPECB1040, Archives Picasso, Musée Picasso, Paris. 17. Letter from Nesjar to Picasso, Box 107 (Nesjar) ARPPHBT0118, Archives Picasso, Musée Picasso, Paris. 18. Nesjar used the term “souffler” in his letters to describe the sandblasting process. 19. Photo box ARPPHBT0118, Photo Archives, Musée Picasso, Paris. 20. Ibid., photo 5452. 21. Letter from Nesjar to Picasso, October 27, 1957, Box 107 (Nesjar) ARPECB1040, Archives Picasso, Musée Picasso, Paris. The visit was imminent : Nesjar was flying to Nice on the 28th. 22. Fairweather, pp.38 – 39. 23. Spies 640, collection Musée Picasso ; see Duncan, p.138, and Picasso : In the Studio, ill. 14. 24. Fairweather, p.34. 25. In addition, in a project not connected with Nesjar, a large version of the Musée Picasso’s wood Tête de femme was fabricated in 1993 in acrylic and installed at a ski resort in Les Cluses, Flaine, Haute-Savoie, France. 26. See photomontages in Fairweather, p.118, 127, and 139. Colloque Picasso Sculptures Catherine Craft : Picasso’s Tête de Femme 9 LES SCULPTURES EN BÉTON DE PICASSO Anna Rosellini • Colloque Picasso Sculptures • 25 mars 2016 À partir des années 1950, plusieurs artistes ont interrogé la nature des matériaux, mettant l’expressivité du béton armé au centre de leurs expérimentations. Leurs œuvres semblent dialoguer avec nique, mais devient autonome dans la fabrication et les grandes architectures de l’après-guerre dans les- la genèse de la forme elle-même. La plasticité de la quelles ce même matériau est partout privilégié et matière d’origine de la sculpture en bronze, autre- mis en œuvre selon les différents contextes produc- ment dit le plâtre, devient l’aspect technique qu’il tifs et économiques. Parmi les importantes sculp- expérimente. En imprimant sur le plâtre les motifs tures en béton commençant à apparaître dans les d’un matériau et d’un objet, Picasso crée des textures années 1950, certaines sont précisément marquées inattendues dans la sculpture en bronze. par ces contextes historiques, et dans de nombreux Les empreintes de différents matériaux commencent à cas, ce matériau est utilisé par les artistes pour expri- apparaître quand Picasso modèle le plâtre avec des sacs mer des valeurs culturelles qui ne peuvent pas être de jute, du carton, des pièces métalliques, des sphères, comprises entièrement sans les évaluer à la lumière des planches en bois ou du papier froissé1 – on trouve des expériences architectoniques. également des empreintes de feuilles de végétaux et de boîtes de cigares2, ainsi que des grilles métalliques3. Les PICASSO ET LE MOULAGE POUR LES FUSIONS EN BRONZE empreintes sont d’abord introduites dans un modelé À partir des années 1930, Pablo Picasso commence à certains cas, elles remplacent presque complètement expérimenter un type de sculpture, qu’il exécute en le modelé5. À partir des années 1940, les sculptures plâtre ou en argile pour ensuite la fondre en bronze. en bronze de Picasso deviennent des assemblages de Cette expérience associe le modelé traditionnel de la nombreuses pièces, avec différents types d’empreintes, matière, exécuté avec les mains ou avec des spatu- qui transforment le modelé en un bricolage paradoxal les, à de véritables empreintes produites sur le plâtre parce que fondu dans un matériau unique6. par divers matériaux ou objets. Les empreintes créent La série de sculptures aux textures de matériaux inso- l’effet d’un assemblage de pièces différentes, même si lites, que Picasso entreprend pendant les années 1930 Picasso manipule un unique bloc de plâtre. Ce genre et qu’il développe jusqu’après la Seconde Guerre mon- de sculpture ouvre le chapitre fondamental du rôle diale, constitue ainsi un chapitre fondamental dans des empreintes des matériaux et des objets sur une l’exploration des procédés de fabrication d’œuvres à la sculpture exécutée avec un seul matériau. recherche de modalités alternatives et radicales pour la Picasso opère une transformation radicale du genèse des empreintes à modeler sur la matière, après concept de moulage, qui n’est plus une simple figure avoir épuisé les possibilités du travail de la surface avec imaginée de façon indépendante du processus tech- différents outils, et les différentes façons de non finito. encore exécuté principalement à la main4, puis, dans Dans ce contexte, Picasso accomplit une opération analogue à celle qui se déroule dans les chantiers d’œuvres en « béton brut » de Le Corbusier, quand en Colloque Picasso Sculptures Anna Rosellini : Les sculptures en béton de Picasso 1 tout des imperfections du coulage et de la rudesse d’exécution de ce matériau tel que mis en œuvre sur le chantier de Marseille. Picasso, qui chemine depuis des années dans l’univers des empreintes laissées par 1958 il fait fondre en bronze une sculpture, Tête, réa- des matériaux rigides sur des substances molles en lisée à partir d’une caisse faite de planches en bois, voie de solidification, sans se préoccuper de les com- car son bronze, comme le béton de Le Corbusier, fixe poser avec un dessin parfait, peut saisir pleinement la toutes les veines du bois. révélation de Marseille, la découverte inattendue de Ce n’est pas un hasard si, après l’achèvement du la beauté des « malfaçons » que les ingénieurs et les chantier de l’Unité d’habitation [la Cité radieuse] ouvriers au service de Le Corbusier ont, eux, tenté au de Marseille, Le Corbusier compare le béton au contraire de réduire au minimum pendant toutes les bronze, deux matériaux qui ont la caractéristique de phases de la construction, puis de corriger après le restituer, dans le passage de l’état liquide au solide décoffrage11. L’ Unité d’habitation exerce une fascina- et en contact avec d’autres matériaux, toutes les tion sur Picasso, confirmée par sa demande en 1952 empreintes et textures du moule qui devient alors de visite du chantier presque achevé12. l’ingrédient fondamental de la fusion ou du coulage7. Les visites que Picasso effectue en compagnie de Le Corbusier, sur le chantier de Marseille, permettent LES VISITES DE PICASSO AU CHANTIER DE L’UNITÉ D’HABITATION DE MARSEILLE de saisir l’interprétation critique des défauts d’exécution du béton comme traits artistiques distinctifs En août 1949, Picasso a l’occasion de visiter le chan- de l’œuvre même. En partant de cette considéra- tier de l’Unité d’habitation de Marseille , grâce à José tion, il n’est pas à exclure que Picasso soit à l’origine Luis Sert. Il rejoint Marseille en voyageant avec Le de l’intuition de Le Corbusier d’écrire l’éloge de la Corbusier dans sa propre voiture, qui sera l’objet « malfaçon », qui deviendra le thème central de l’ar- d’une caricature du genre du cadavre exquis9. chitecture dans le monde entier, au moins jusqu’aux 8 Un reportage photographique documente les années 1960, pour émerger avec une connotation moments marquants de la visite. Le Corbusier appa- encore plus artistique à la fin du siècle. raît sous la plateforme à côté de Picasso, pendant que Il est également intéressant de remarquer qu’après ce dernier dirige son regard en haut, vers la trame des la visite à l’Unité d’habitation, Picasso dessine des empreintes imparfaites laissées par les planches de architectures fantastiques, colossales comme celle de bois des coffrages . Aucun document ne rapporte les Marseille, et souvent soulevées du sol par d’informes mots que Picasso ou Le Corbusier auraient prononcé pilotis13. Ce qui doit avoir impressionné Picasso dans pendant cette rencontre, dans ce chantier destiné à l’ouvrage de Le Corbusier, c’est la possibilité de modeler marquer l’affirmation dans le monde de l’esthétique des surfaces en béton armé, de les plier librement 10 du béton brut. Nous pouvons néanmoins supposer que Picasso a admiré le potentiel artistique du béton apparent de l’œuvre de Le Corbusier, en raison sur- Colloque Picasso Sculptures Anna Rosellini : Les sculptures en béton de Picasso 2 comme dans les cheminées de ventilation sur le toit ou dans les pilotis eux-mêmes. Les architectures dessinées par Picasso semblent à construire en carton ou en tôle et se caractérisent par des plis, comme celles que Le ment au sgraffito tel que décrit et aussi pratiqué par Corbusier lui-même réalisera plus tard avec la chapelle Giorgio Vasari. de Ronchamp, et le pavillon Philips. Nesjar développe des processus variés pour son type LES SCULPTURES EN BÉTON DE PICASSO ET NESJAR, ET LE CONTEXTE ARCHITECTONIQUE particulier de sgraffito. Pour certaines sculptures réalisées avec Picasso, il intervient sur les coffrages en bois, en les travaillant de façon différente selon le Les visites de Picasso au chantier de l’Unité d’habi- type de surface à obtenir une fois la sculpture termi- tation de Marseille en compagnie de Le Corbusier née. Il applique parfois des feuilles en plastique pour ne génèrent pas, chez le grand artiste, une réaction créer des surfaces lisses, et donc pour distinguer, déjà immédiate. Pour voir une utilisation systématique pendant la phase de décoffrage, les secteurs à travail- du béton armé dans les sculptures de Picasso, il faut ler, le futur « béton soufflé », de ceux qui ne doivent attendre 1957, quand l’artiste norvégien Carl Nesjar pas être touchés. Dans d’autres cas, il intervient direc- le contacte pour l’impliquer dans la réalisation, à tement sur la surface après décoffrage, sans prévoir Oslo, d’un important cycle d’œuvres murales qui doit de travail sur les coffrages16 (figg. 2-3). commencer cette même année, avec un béton armé La technique de Nesjar doit être considérée dans le travaillé en surface après le décoffrage, grâce à une cadre des différentes expérimentations sur le béton technique de sablage d’invention récente14. apparent qui se multiplient après la Seconde Guerre, Nesjar met au point la technique de la bétogravure sous l’influence de l’invention du béton brut, et donc qui consiste à utiliser un compresseur à air pour éli- de l’univers de texture de surfaces que cette façon miner la pellicule superficielle du béton qui se forme, de mettre en œuvre ce matériau à ouvert à partir du par capillarité, sur la surface au contact des coffrages, chantier de l’Unité d’habitation de Marseille. Beau- afin de rendre visibles les agrégats du mélange. Nesjar coup d’architectes décident, contrairement à Le Cor- et Picasso désignent les surfaces ainsi travaillées de busier, de travailler le béton après son décoffrage, « béton soufflé » (fig. 1). Les agrégats du béton avec pour obtenir des effets particuliers qui dépassent ciment blanc sont choisis en fonction de leur cou- ceux des simples empreintes des coffrages, et qui per- leur foncée, de façon à obtenir des contrastes visibles mettent de rendre visibles les agrégats du mélange entre les surfaces blanches non travaillées et celles en qui sont alors choisis non seulement pour leurs pro- « béton soufflé ». Cette technique implique de graver priétés mécaniques, mais aussi pour leurs qualités la surface pour créer des lignes et des contrastes chro- esthétiques, de couleurs et de granulométrie. Pour matiques, et l’on pourrait la faire remonter directe- rendre les agrégats visibles, on a recours à des trai- 15 tements qui vont du bouchardage, au piquage, au sablage des surfaces après décoffrage. Carlo Scarpa et Marcel Breuer sont parmi les principaux promoteurs Colloque Picasso Sculptures Anna Rosellini : Les sculptures en béton de Picasso 3 parmi lesquels se trouve également Nesjar, occupés à expérimenter ce matériau mis en œuvre selon sa technique. L’investissement de Picasso dans l’expérimentation de cette nouvelle technique doit être assodu bouchardage, déjà expérimenté par Auguste Perret cié à l’impulsion artistique promue par Viksjø pour la depuis les années 1930, et diversement réinterprété construction du principal bâtiment d’État à Oslo : le ensuite par Ieoh Ming Pei. D’autres types particuliers siège du gouvernement et des ministères norvégiens de béton sont le desert-concrete inventé par Frank à Empirekvartalet, inauguré en 1958. Lloyd Wright pour les pavillons de Taliesin West et Il faut néanmoins préciser, pour éviter de penser que ces réalisé en disposant des pierres contre les coffrages, et innovations datent du tournant des années 1960, que en coulant un béton très sec  ; ou la maçonnerie spé- dès les premières décennies du XXe siècle, des techni- ciale en béton que Eero Saarinen met en point pour ciens, des entrepreneurs et des inventeurs avaient ima- les collèges Samuel F. B. Morse et Ezra Stiles à New giné un dispositif qui permettait d’obtenir une couche Haven, où le béton est introduit sous pression entre les d’agrégats. Dans un vide, créé dans les coffrages par pierres déjà en place (dans le cas de cette technique, l’introduction d’une plaque en tôle, on disposait les il est nécessaire d’intervenir après décoffrage avec des agrégats recherchés pour leur granulométrie ; dans burins, des brosses et un jet d’eau sous pression, pour l’autre secteur du coffrage on coulait du béton ordi- éliminer la pellicule de ciment superficielle) . Dans naire ; on enlevait alors la plaque en tôle, et le béton la maçonnerie en béton, Saarinen introduit aussi des ordinaire pénétrait dans la couche des agrégats, en les pierres artificielles en ciment, sculptées par Costan- cimentant ; enfin, on intervenait sur la surface, après tino Nivola et utilisées pour protéger les lampes de décoffrage, avec des opérations de polissage pour l’illumination artificielle. La technique de Saarinen enlever le dépôt de ciment. Cette technique particu- rentre dans la même catégorie que le rubble concrete, lière avait très largement été utilisée par les premiers et le prepacked concrete, qui étaient utilisés au moins expérimentateurs, qui étudiaient les différentes mises depuis les années 1930 pour consolider les fondations en œuvre du béton permettant de le faire ressembler à des grands ouvrages hydrauliques (on disposait des la pierre. C’est précisément cette technique que Viksjø pierres et du gravier, puis on injectait le mélange sous redécouvre (apparemment sans le savoir). Le système pression). Le desert-concrete, le rubble concrete ou le breveté par l’architecte norvégien est similaire à celui prepacked concrete relèvent du genre connu dans les des débuts du XXe siècle : le mélange est introduit sous années 1960 comme preplaced aggregate concrete qui pression dans des coffrages dans lesquels les agrégats inclut également la technique à l’origine de la « béto- ont été déjà disposés et, après décoffrage, les surfaces gravure » de Nesjar19 – le « Naturbetong » inventé par sont sablées avec des machines à air comprimé21. 17 18 Erling Viksjø20. En effet, tout l’art des sculptures de Nesjar et Picasso trouve son origine dans l’invention technique mise au point par Viksjø, qui deviendra la référence dans le cercle des artistes norvégiens, Colloque Picasso Sculptures Anna Rosellini : Les sculptures en béton de Picasso 4 LE BUST OF SYLVETTE DE LA NEW YORK UNIVERSITY Pei est l’un des principaux protagonistes de l’architectural concrete américain. Sa recherche sur les qualités formelles du béton commence vers la moitié des années 1950 et sculpture. Les travaux de ce genre particulier de béton continue sans interruption au moins jusqu’aux années sont confiés à la Prescon Corporation de Corpus Christi, 1970. La première série de bâtiments que Pei construit en Texas23. béton armé comprend le complexe de trois tours résiden- Pei n’est pas indifférent à la technique de Nesjar et tielles de l’University Plaza de la New York University, réa- Picasso, dans laquelle il voit la possibilité de sculp- lisé entre 1960 et 1966 (le chantier commence en 1964). ter des surfaces en béton avec des rayures différentes Pour le jardin entre les tours, Pei s’adresse à Picasso, qui de celles rendues célèbres par Paul Rudolph dans réalise le Bust de Sylvette, avec la technique imaginée l’Art and Architecture Building de New Haven. Après par Nesjar, en béton, de la même couleur beige que celui l’expérience de l’University Plaza, les traitements du des tours (la sculpture est construite en 1968). Pei est béton de Pei s’enrichissent de textures de surface iné- passionné de peinture et de sculpture (il se porte acqué- dites, également par l’application de la technique vue reur d’œuvre de Jean Dubuffet et d' Henry Moore). Sa dans le chantier de la sculpture de Picasso. Pei crée connaissance de la technique de sculpture de Nesjar des variantes de la technique de Nesjar dans deux et Picasso remonte à 1958, quand il rencontre Nesjar œuvres : le siège du National Center for Athmospheric à Paris, alors que ce dernier rentre en Norvège depuis Research, à Boulder, Colorado, réalisé entre 1961 et le sud de la France où il s’est rendu pour discuter avec 1967 ; et l’Everson Museum of Art, à Syracuse, dans Picasso de la technique de la « bétogravure » (fig. 4). l’État de New York, réalisé entre 1961 et 1968. Le Bust de Sylvette est une sculpture qui ne se limite pas à montrer les potentialités créatives de la « béto- Une étude de la relation entre Picasso et Le Corbu- gravure ». Il s’agit également d’une œuvre de virtuosité sier, à partir du béton brut de Marseille, jusqu’aux d’ingénierie liée à la technique du béton armé précon- techniques utilisées pour les sculptures réalisées avec traint. Le bureau d’ingénieurs Weiskopf & Pickworth Nesjar, et aux influences possibles de ces techniques de New York est consulté pour résoudre les problèmes sur les chantiers de la construction, nous permet de d’équilibre des lames de béton armé qui sont soumises constater comment la matière et la technique ont rap- aux pressions du vent, agissant comme les voiles d’un proché architecture et sculpture pendant les années navire (fig. 5). Leur stabilité est assurée grâce à une 1950 et 1960, sans pour autant en confondre les spé- large base, solidaire avec les piliers du garage souter- cificités, et en produisant ce qu’on pourrait appeler rain. À cette base sont fixés les câbles servant à la pré- une synthèse des arts à vocation technique. 22 contrainte, qui traversent le béton armé des voiles de la Colloque Picasso Sculptures Anna Rosellini : Les sculptures en béton de Picasso 5 FIG. 1  CARL NESJAR, LETTRE À JACQUELINE ET PABLO PICASSO, 5 MAI 1958 Archives du Musée national Picasso-Paris. 515AP/C/107/1/5 © RMN-Grand Palais (musée Picasso de Paris)/Mathieu Rabeau FIG. 3  PICASSO, CARL NESJAR, Femme aux bras écartés, 1963 Epreuve gélatino-argentique, 17,8 x 23,7 cm Archives du Musée National Picasso, Paris. APPH9463 © RMN-Grand Palais (musée Picasso de Paris)/Mathieu Rabeau © Succession Picasso, 2016 © Succession Picasso, 2016 FIG. 4  PABLO PICASSO, CARL NESJAR Buste de Sylvette, 1968 University Plaza, New York (arch. Pei & Associates) © Massachusetts Institute of Technology/photograph by G. E. Kidder Smith © Succession Picasso, 2016 FIG. 2  PABLO PICASSO, CARL NESJAR, Femme aux bras écartés, 1962 Archives du Musée National Picasso, Paris. © Succession Picasso, 2016 FIG. 5  WEISKOPF & PICKWORTH, armature métallique pour le béton armé précontraint de la sculpture Bust of Sylvette, University Plaza, New York, « Engineering News-record », août 8, 1968. Colloque Picasso Sculptures Anna Rosellini : Les sculptures en béton de Picasso 6 NOTES 1. Voir par exemple Papier froissé, 1934. 2. Voir par exemple Femme au feuillage, 1934. 3. Voir par exemple La Femme à l’orange ou La Femme à la pomme, 1934. 4. Voir par exemple Tête casquée, 1933. 5. Voir par exemple L’Orateur, 1937. 6. Voir par exemple La Femme à la clé (« La Taulière »), 1954-1957. 7. Aux yeux de Le Corbusier, les coffrages deviennent un moule immense, et l’Unité d’habitation est générée par un processus identique à celui d’une gigantesque fusion en bronze. « Le béton – écrit Le Corbusier –, le plus fidèle des matériaux, plus fidèle peut-être que le bronze, peut prendre place dans l’art architectural et exprimer les intentions du sculpteur » (Le Corbusier, Le Modulor, in Willy Boesiger, éd., Le Corbusier. Œuvre complète, 1946-52, Zurich, Éditions Girsberger, 1953, éd. 1970, p. 184). 8. Le Corbusier, lettre à Pablo Picasso, 23 août 1949, Archives du Musée national Picasso-Paris, 83.LEC-LEH. À propos de la visite de Picasso, voir aussi : Stanislaus von Moos, « Brutalism’s Ghosts – Le Corbusier, Art and War », in Ruth Baumeister, éd., What Moves Us ? Le Corbusier and Asger Jorn in Art and Architecture, Zurich, Scheidegger & Spiess, 2015, p. 17-27 ; Anna Rosellini, « Unité d’habitation in Marseille – Experimental Artistic Device », in Ruth Baumeister, éd., What Moves Us ?, op. cit., p. 38-45. 9. Voir la carte postale envoyée à Picasso, 3 octobre 1950, Archives du Musée national Picasso-Paris, 157.SAU-SCH. 10. Photographie conservée auprès de la Fondation Le Corbusier, FLC, L4.2.64. 11. « Malfaçons » est le terme utilisé par Le Corbusier pour indiquer les défauts apparus Colloque Picasso Sculptures sur les surfaces de son béton brut ([Le Corbusier], L’Unité d’habitation à Marseille, in Willy Boesiger, éd., Le Corbusier. Œuvre complète, 1946-52, op. cit., p. 191). À propos du chantier de Marseille, voir Anna Rosellini, « The discovery of béton brut with malfaçons : the worksite of the Unité d’habitation at Marseille », in Roberto Gargiani, Anna Rosellini, Le Corbusier : Béton Brut and Ineffable Space, 1940-1965. Surface Materials and Psychophysiology of Vision, Lausanne, EPFL Press, Routledge, 2011, p. 2-61. 12. Un document daté de mai 1952, mentionne Picasso parmi les visiteurs du chantier de l’Unité d’habitation (Cf., FLC, O1.20.1-595). 13. Pablo Picasso, dessins d’architectures, 1958, Archives du Musée national Picasso-Paris. 14. Voir à ce propos Carl Nesjar, lettre à Pablo Picasso, 5 janvier 1957, Archives du Musée national Picasso-Paris, 107 Nesjar (1957-1962). À propos des sculptures de Picasso et de Nesjar, voir aussi Kunst I Betong, catalogue de l’exposition, Stockholm, Moderna Museet, 1964 ; Carl Nesjar, Picasso and Concrete, Londres, Graphis Press Ltd, 1967 ; Sally Fairweather, Picasso Concrete Sculptures, New York, Hudson Hills Press, 1982 ; Werner Spies, Picasso sculpteur, Paris, Centre Pompidou, 2000 ; Sylvia Antoniou Nesjar, éd., Carl Nesjar  : Linking Art, Nature, and Technology, Oslo, Labyrinth Press, 2008 ; Céline Godefroy, Virginie Perdrisot, éds., Picasso. Sculptures, Bruxelles, Paris, Palais des Beaux-Arts (Bozar), Musée national Picasso, Somogy éditions, 2016. 15. Voir Carl Nesjar, lettre à Jacqueline Roque et Pablo Picasso, 5 mai 1958, Musée national Picasso-Paris, 107 Nesjar (1957-1962). 17. Robert Mosher, « In the Arizona Desert : Taliesin West », Taliesin. Journal of the Taliesin Fellowship, février 1941, no 1 (p. 30-35), p. 31. 18. « Saarinen’s Athens Air Terminal », Architectural Record, vol. 132, no 2, août 1962, p. 111-114. 19. Harold J. Rosen, « Prepacked concrete », Progressive Architecture, vol. 44, no 11, novembre 1963, p. 184 ; Julian J. Karp, « Naturbetong concrete », Progressive Architecture, vol. 54, no 4, avril 1973, p. 104-06 ; ACI Committee 304, Guide for the Use of Preplaced Aggregate Concrete for Structural and Mass Concrete Applications, ACI 304.1 R-92. 20. Concernant les descriptions des essais de mise au point du traitement du béton avec les agrégats apparents, voir Erling Viksjø, « Fasadebetong ? », Byggekunst, 1951, no 3, p. 58-60. Un rapport des travaux du palais du gouvernement et la description du potentiel artistique du « Naturbetong » se trouve dans Erling Viksjø, « Det nye regjeringsbygget », Byggekunst, 1959, no 1-4. 21. Voir à ce propos le dessin d’Erling Viksjø, Naturbetong, 11 octobre 1961. 22. « Picasso’s prestressed sculpture », Engineering News-record, vol. 181, no 6, 8 août 1968, p. 20-21 ; « Picasso in New York », Journal of the American Institute of Architects, janvier 1968, p. 101 ; R.C. Heun, « Picasso’s adventures in concrete », Concrete International, septembre 1988, p. 53-54. 23. Voir « Picasso’s prestressed sculpture », op. cit. ; « A prestressed, post-tensioned Picasso », Concrete Construction Magazine, 1er octobre 1969. 16. Voir la série de photographies conservées aux Archives du Musée national Picasso-Paris, 107 Nesjar (1957-1962). Anna Rosellini : Les sculptures en béton de Picasso 7 PICASSO/GIACOMETTI : DIALOGUES ARTISTIQUES Serena Bucalo-Mussely • Colloque Picasso Sculptures • 25 mars 2016 P ar cette intervention, nous montrerons l’importance que revêt l’œuvre de Pablo Picasso dans l’œuvre sculptée d’Alberto Giacometti, pendant la période 1925-1935. Dans les premières années de for- passe au-delà des murs de l’académie. mation, le jeune artiste suisse chercha à rattraper les À partir de 1925, Giacometti engage un processus inventions stylistiques du cubisme, de l’art nègre et du de création nouveau, qui durera une décennie, et dadaïsme, en se donnant comme guides les artistes de qui le portera jusqu’au seuil de l’abstraction. À cette la génération précédente tels que Laurens, Lipchitz, époque, il commence à fréquenter les salons et les Brancusi et Picasso. Giacometti s’approprie le langage expositions, croise les artistes dans les cafés et visite du maître espagnol pour traiter de thèmes comme la leurs ateliers. Les courants avant-gardistes le fas- tête, le corps humain ou l’homme et la femme. La sculp- cinent et il regarde avec admiration le travail des ture de Picasso contribue sans aucun doute au passage, maîtres, parmi lesquels se trouve Picasso. chez lui, d’une sculpture traditionnelle à une sculpture C’est par le dessin que Giacometti effectue ses « moderne », à l’abandon du style classique, vers une recherches. Dans les carnets de 1925, on remarque, stylisation des traits et un découpage en facettes. d’une part, l’intérêt porté pour les nouvelles voies d’ex- DE LA SCULPTURE TRADITIONNELLE À LA SCULPTURE MODERNISTE pressions des avant-gardes et, d’autre part, son désir de s’éloigner des règles académiques. Les surfaces des corps, construites d’un réseau de lignes et de facettes, En 1922, Alberto Giacometti s’installe à Paris dans le évoluent pour donner vie à des formes plus abstraites, quartier de Montparnasse, où il assiste aux cours d’An- parfois polyédriques. Comme pour Picasso, le dessin toine Bourdelle à l’académie de la Grande Chaumière. est à cette époque un instrument pour explorer les Il y étudie le dessin, la sculpture et la conception du masses et leurs rapports dans l’espace. Dans le Torse corps dans l’espace. Le dessin est pour Bourdelle un de 19251, Giacometti transpose en sculpture les études outil d’étude préalable à la création des sculptures. À formelles faites sur papier. Soumise au processus l’académie, Giacometti affine sa technique de dessin d’abstraction des formes, cette sculpture, la première d’après modèle, en apprenant à travailler sur les dif- « non-figurative », constitue un premier essai proche férentes parties du corps humain et à diviser les sur- du cubisme. N’arrivant pas à restituer la tridimension- faces en une multitude de facettes, afin de rendre les nalité de l’ensemble du corps, Giacometti recherche volumes. Mais le Paris des années 1920 est un terrain un équilibre des formes en passant par ses éléments de rencontres et de querelles artistiques, et y rester individuels et en les réduisant à des blocs angulaires. Il impassible demeure difficile. L’enthousiasme éprouvé considéra, d’ailleurs, cette œuvre comme un tournant devant les exercices en classe par le jeune étudiant est dans sa carrière, comme en témoigne le catalogue vite supplanté par la curiosité suscitée par ce qui se de son œuvre rédigé en 1947 pour Pierre Matisse ; il commença sa liste par cette sculpture, sans prendre en compte tout ce qu’il avait réalisé auparavant. C’est encore dans le cadre de l’académie, en 1926, Colloque Picasso Sculptures Serena Bucalo-Mussely : Picasso/Giacometti 1 facettes dessinent les formes de cette femme sinueuse et revoient à la Composition faite par Giacometti en 192719289, où la figure légère de la femme, avec ses genoux pliés vers la gauche, ont les mêmes lignes serpentines. que Giacometti réalise en sculpture le portrait de son Encore, dans la Figure (dite cubiste I) de 192610, les amie et collègue, Flora Mayo2. La tête de Flora doit éléments de la représentation humaine sont réduits beaucoup à l’œuvre de Picasso. À l’instar des por- à des formes géométriques essentielles, cubes et traits de 1906-1907 de l’artiste espagnol, les traits sphères, combinées et transposées de manière à du visage tendent à la schématisation. Les yeux sont rendre le personnage. La partie supérieure fait dessinés en forme d’amande, la bouche est proé- exception, car on reconnaît clairement la tête, par minente, le nez est représenté en deux dimensions l’œil, le nez et le contour du visage. comme s’il était vu de profil, bien qu’il s’agisse d’une Giacometti opère un véritable assemblage cubiste représentation de face. Telle une stèle, le visage de dans sa Composition (dite cubiste II) de 192711. Il Flora devient un plan plus ou moins rectangulaire imbrique plusieurs objets distincts les uns dans les sur lequel sont gravés les formes et les traits. autres, à la manière du cubisme synthétique de À cette période, Giacometti se concentre sur la repré- Picasso, pour donner vie à des compositions dont sentation de la tête. Le volume est parfois créé par l’identification s’opère par la déstructuration des un dessin de facettes et la fluidité de la forme est différents éléments qui la composent. obtenue par la multiplication de ces éléments. La méthode de travail de l’artiste relève visiblement du LA RENCONTRE DES ARTS LOINTAINS cubisme, comme dans la Tête en plâtre (aujourd’hui Dès la fin des années 1920, Alberto Giacometti devient détruite), connue par les photographies de Marc un observateur attentif des expressions artistiques Vaux . Dans la Tête de femme (Fernande) de 1909 , venant du monde entier. Les dessins et les esquisses de on retrouve la même matérialisation du vocabulaire cette époque montrent bien l’intérêt porté par l’artiste cubiste du dessin sur une sculpture. Pour la Tête- aux arts des continents océanien et africain. crâne, intitulée aussi par l’artiste « Tête, dite cubiste » Comme Picasso, Alberto est attiré par ce monde loin- , Giacometti emprunte encore à Picasso la technique tain perçu au travers des magazines, tels que Cahiers de l’« addition de fractions de formes ». L’artiste fixe d’art et Documents, et dans les collections du musée dans l’espace des facettes découpées et organisées d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro et du Louvre. Sans cesse, pour rendre la masse du visage. Les angles sont proé- Giacometti recopie les masques, les totems, les sculp- minents, des dépressions circulaires suggèrent les tures, il en retranscrit les formes et les compositions et orbites. Une arête centrale indique le nez, une ouver- il en fait un répertoire de modèles dans lequel piocher ture rectangulaire la bouche. Le rapprochement avec pour la réalisation de ses œuvres. Avant lui, Picasso 3 5 4 la Pomme de Picasso , sculptée en 1909, ou avec son 6 dessin de Porte-buvard de 19117 est évident. Dans le Nu debout dessiné en 19108, de nombreuses Colloque Picasso Sculptures Serena Bucalo-Mussely : Picasso/Giacometti 2 s’était intéressé aux moyens de composition provenant de cet univers lointain, il s’était approprié leurs esthétiques pour un grand nombre de ses compositions. L’ artiste espagnol était fasciné, non pas par des œuvres L’œuvre phare de cette période est la Femme cuillère15 en particulier, mais plutôt par les différents éléments de 1927. L’œuvre, qui fut présentée pour la première qui les composent, qu’il isole, assimile et retravaille fois au Salon des Tuileries de 1927, rappelle par sa pour donner vie à des œuvres syncrétiques, résultat forme les cuillères anthropomorphes d’Afrique16 et de la somme de modèles parfois très différents. Nous présente le même caractère totémique que les œuvres retrouvons ce même processus d’assimilation formelle de Picasso. Des années plus tard, en 1951, Giacometti chez Giacometti : les boucliers, les totems peints, les déclara dans une lettre à Pierre Matisse que « la pein- statues funéraires ou encore les poupées de fécondité ture des Cubistes et Picasso contenait tout ce qui était sont réinterprétés par l’artiste afin de créer de nou- nécessaire à faire naître [cette sculpture] 17 ». veaux simulacres d’hommes et de femmes. Le milieu artistique fréquenté par Giacometti à la fin ENTRE RÉEL ET SURRÉEL des années 1920 stimule cette création artistique en Bien que Picasso ait su garder son indépendance vis- rapport avec les « arts primitifs ». Giacometti se lie à-vis du mouvement surréaliste, il ne fut pas complè- d’amitié avec Carl Einstein, Michel Leiris et le col- tement indifférent aux propositions artistiques faites lectionneur d’art primitif Joseph Müller. En 1929, il par les membres du cercle, et plus particulièrement travaille au portrait en plâtre de ce dernier. Comme par le travail de Giacometti. pour son Personnage accroupi de 192612, la tête de Alberto Giacometti entra dans le cercle des surréa- Müller est plate, comme une stèle, et le visage pré- listes en 1930, après le succès de sa Boule suspen- sente des traits schématisés tels ceux d’un masque. due18. À cette période, les œuvres des deux artistes Le nez parallélépipède marque le centre du visage, sont amplement représentées dans les revues à l’image de ceux qui apparaissent sur les carnets et Cahiers d’art, Documents et Minotaure. les croquis de Picasso en 1907-1908 . C’est par ailleurs dans les Cahiers d’art que Giacometti Dans le Couple de 1927 , nous retrouvons la fronta- voit pour la première fois les dessins des Baigneuses de lité de certaines compositions extra-occidentales. Gia- Picasso19. Dans une lettre à ses parents, il apparaît très cometti mélange plusieurs formes prises aux sources critique, écrivant : « J’ai vu les reproductions des nou- des arts africains, cycladiques et mégalithiques. Le veaux tableaux de Picasso, on dirait des sculptures, ce couple se lève comme un totem, la femme à gauche, qui ne me plaît pas, et il veut toujours tellement faire l’homme, massif, à droite. La forme en amande de la de nouvelles choses qu’à la fin, il me fatigue20. » Mal- femme nous renvoie aux boucliers ou aux masques de gré ces critiques, les projets de sculptures de Picasso l’art africain étudiés aussi par Picasso. sont copiés soigneusement sur les pages de ses car- 13 14 nets, au milieu des croquis de ses premières œuvres surréalistes21. Dans le Projet pour une place22, Giacometti semble reprendre les sphères et les boomerangs Colloque Picasso Sculptures Serena Bucalo-Mussely : Picasso/Giacometti 3 position en terre29, qui pourrait être un tout premier exemple de sculpture ajourée. Aujourd’hui détruite, cette œuvre, à la limite des compositions cubistes, est une des premières réalisées dans cet esprit de transpaqui composent l’œuvre de Picasso en les disposant rence et d’ouverture dans l’espace. La masse sculptée comme des monolithes dans l’espace. Les formes élé- se dissout, en laissant ressortir une construction faite mentaires des carnets de Dinard de Picasso rappellent de lignes et de figures géométriques. aussi celles de sa célèbre Boule suspendue. L’effet d’ins- En 1929, Giacometti réalise l’Homme (Apollon) 30. Son tabilité exprimé par Picasso nous renvoie au sentiment personnage en forme de grille devient une « construc- d’inaccompli éprouvé devant l’œuvre de Giacometti. tion transparente » et s’oppose aux surfaces pleines Ces mêmes formes deviennent presque organiques et des Femmes plates de 1927-1929, en faveur d’une sont imbriquées les unes dans les autres pour compo- architecture ouverte. Comme dans les dessins, pour ser la Tête de femme, sculptée par Picasso en 1931  ; les constructions en fil de fer, ainsi que pour le Monu- les masses rondes et compactes, polies, comme un os ment à Apollinaire31, Giacometti construit une figure pétrifié, pourraient facilement trouver leur place dans anthropomorphe par un schéma graphique, en laissant une des compositions surréalistes de Giacometti. À ressortir une grille organisée en un tissu orthogonal. cette époque, l’artiste espagnol n’est pas indifférent C’est en passant par ces sculptures ouvertes que Gia- au talent du jeune Suisse. En 1931, il fait sa connais- cometti est amené à réaliser des compositions comme sance par l’intermédiaire de Joan Miró et il visite en Le Palais à 4 heures du matin, en 193232, où il utilise 1932 sa première exposition personnelle à la galerie le réseau de lignes pour créer l’espace dans lequel de Pierre Colle . L’année de la création de Femme mettre en scène des objets surréalistes, des formes assise dans un fauteuil rouge , Picasso étudie sur un humaines, des os et des squelettes. de ses carnets la conjonction existant entre le creux de Dans la série des compositions graphiques, s’inscrit la boule et le croissant de Giacometti26. La sphère et le aussi la sculpture des Trois personnages dehors33, de la croissant de la Boule suspendue reviennent encore en même année que l’Apollon. Cette œuvre illustrera parmi 1933 dans une scène d’Accouplement ou encore dans d’autres l’article que Michel Leiris dédiera à Giacometti une de ses Trois baigneuses surréalistes . dans la revue Documents34, le premier, d’ailleurs, entiè- 23 24 25 27 28 DES DESSINS DANS L’ESPACE rement consacré à l’artiste, où l’on peut lire dans un passage : « Certaines de ses sculptures sont creuses comme Entre la fin des années 1920 et le début des années des spatules, ou comme des fruits vidés. D’autres sont 1930, Picasso propose des constructions en métal. Ces ajourées et l’air passe au travers, émouvants grillages œuvres correspondent à une volonté de traduire la interposés entre le dedans et le dehors35… » figure humaine dans un nouveau langage, celui d’un Quand Giacometti se rapproche de l’univers de Bataille dessin dans l’espace. Un même intérêt pour la sculpture ajourée est visible alors dans l’œuvre de Giacometti. Vers 1927, le sculpteur suisse travaille à une Com- Colloque Picasso Sculptures Serena Bucalo-Mussely : Picasso/Giacometti 4 et de la revue Documents, ses structures aériennes et transparentes accueillent de nouveaux éléments pointus et violents, et deviennent une portion d’espace dans lequel enfermer des objets ou des hommes. C’est le cas Comme dans certains dessins de l’artiste espagnol, de la Cage de 1930-1931 , où la grille se déploie en les deux figures sont en relation et un acte de vio- trois dimensions. Comme dans une toile d’araignée, lence sexuelle a lieu. L’ homme se dresse brusquement l’artiste renferme dans les barreaux de la cage des devant la femme, son attribut viril pointant contre formes animales et végétales, des boules, des tiges et le ventre concave de celle-ci. Les dessins métamor- des râteaux. Ces formes organiques ne sont pas très dif- phiques de Picasso et les sculptures de Giacometti, férentes, comme on le verra par la suite, des solutions par leur expression de la tension et de l’agressivité, expérimentées dans les mêmes années par Picasso. s’inscrivent bien dans l’univers décrit par Bataille, où 36 les pulsions érotiques alternent avec les pulsions de PRÉDATIONS MORTIFÈRES mort. De plus, les formes pointues et blessantes des La notion de cruauté constitue un autre point commun piques sortant du plateau de la composition dessinée important dans la création des deux artistes. Dans les par Picasso sur un carnet de 193041, nous renvoient à œuvres des années « surréalistes », le corps humain la violence des pieds irréguliers de la Figure boiteuse en devient souvent monstrueux et tentaculaire et se rap- marche de Giacometti42, dont les extrémités percent le proche de l’esthétique de la laideur, lancée par Bataille plateau pour envahir l’espace du spectateur. dans « Soleil pourri » et par le groupe gravitant autour En 1929, l’artiste suisse reçoit, par l’intermédiaire d’An- de Documents. À cet égard, les œuvres des deux artistes dré Masson, la commande d’un relief en bronze pour un sont publiées dans les pages de la revue, servant à illus- appartement privé. Il travaille alors à sa première sculpture trer cette pensée violente et parfois misogyne. insecte et le résultat est une œuvre effrayante, une sculp- Dans cette optique, les croquis de Baigneuses, dessinés ture à la forme d’araignée-scorpion, connue aujourd’hui par Picasso dans les carnets de 1927-192838, repré- seulement grâce aux photographies d’époque43. Cet ani- sentent un terrain d’étude intéressant. Ces dessins mal aux membres déformés perturbe par sa violence ; ses révèlent une sculpture faite de dilatations organiques, pinces et sa queue, évoquant les râteaux enfermés dans de formes désarticulées, souvent violentes, pointues la Cage, sont très proches des arêtes ressortant du person- et tranchantes. Les formes de l’Objet désagréable à nage que Picasso dessine dans un carnet de 192744. jeter, réalisé par Giacometti en 193139, manifestent les La Femme égorgée45 de 1932 résulte de ce relief, trans- mêmes sentiments d’agression physique et de violence posant la violence et le sentiment d’agression sur un psychologique, provoqués par l’instabilité de la com- corps humain féminin. Elle représente la perception position. Dans Homme et femme de 192940, le thème de Bataille de l’acte sexuel comme acte criminel. La de la violence et de la cruauté sexuelle est évident. femme, gisant sur le sol, a la gorge tranchée, son 37 corps est articulé de façon complexe et renvoie au monde animal. Il est ouvert, le ventre cambré, les côtes visibles, camouflant des pinces ou des mâchoires Colloque Picasso Sculptures Serena Bucalo-Mussely : Picasso/Giacometti 5 d’insecte. L’ œuvre a été souvent perçue comme métamorphique, à la limite entre l’anatomie humaine et animale. Sa structure souple et ondulée, ses articulations renvoient au corps de la Baigneuse allongée46 de Picasso. Les croquis préparatoires de la sculpture47 de l’artiste espagnol montrent encore plus clairement la désarticulation de ses parties, rapprochant davantage cette représentation de celle de Giacometti. Une nouvelle version de la Femme égorgée est réalisée par Giacometti entre 1931 et 1932 ; il lui donne le titre éloquent de Femme angoissée dans une chambre la nuit48. La sculpture reprend la thématique du rapport amoureux conflictuel et du sentiment inconscient d’horreur devant la femme. Sa bouche est comparable à un piège mortel, les éléments osseux et les mâchoires rappellent les dentures monstrueuses des femmes peintes à cette époque par Picasso49. En guise de conclusion, nous avons démontré les rapprochements existant entre l’œuvre sculptée par Alberto Giacometti et celle de Pablo Picasso dans une période circonscrite entre 1925 et 1935. Les similitudes identifiées à l’occasion de ce colloque sont présentées avec plus de détails lors de l’exposition « Picasso-Giacometti », au Musée national Picasso-Paris entre le 4 octobre 2016 et le 5 février 2017, visant à approfondir l’étude conjointe de l’œuvre de ces deux artistes et plus particulièrement l’intérêt mutuel que les artistes se sont portés à différents momentsclés de leurs carrières. Colloque Picasso Sculptures Serena Bucalo-Mussely : Picasso/Giacometti 6 FIG. 3  ALBERTO GIACOMETTI Composition en terre, vers 1927 Archives de la Fondation Alberto Giacometti, Paris FIG. 1  ALBERTO GIACOMETTI Torse, 1925 Plâtre, 58 x 25 x 24 cm Collection Alberto Giacometti-Stiftung, Zurich FIG. 4  ALBERTO GIACOMETTI Relief en bronze, vers 1929 Archives de la Fondation Alberto Giacometti, Paris © Photo : Marc Vaux FIG. 5  PABLO PICASSO Baigneuse, Cannes 1927 Mine de plomb sur page de carnet (Folio 40 recto) Musée national Picasso-Paris. MP1874 FIG. 2  ALBERTO GIACOMETTI © RMN-Grand Palais (musée Picasso de Paris)/Mathieu Rabeau Boule suspendue, 1930-1931 Plâtre, métal peint © Succession Picasso, 2016 et ficelle, 60,6 x 35,6 x 36,1 cm Collection Fondation Alberto Giacometti, Paris © Succession Alberto Giacometti (Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti, Paris + ADAGP, Paris) 2016 Colloque Picasso Sculptures Serena Bucalo-Mussely : Picasso/Giacometti 7 NOTES 1. Collection de l’Alberto Giacometti-Stiftung, Zurich. 2. Le plâtre et le bronze se trouvent dans la collection de la Fondation Giacometti à Paris. 3. Archives de la Fondation Giacometti, Paris. 4. Collection du Musée national Picasso-Paris, inv. MP243. 5. Collection de la Fondation Giacometti, Paris. 6. Collection du Musée national Picasso-Paris, inv. MP242. 7. Collection du Musée national Picasso-Paris, inv. MP664. 8. Collection du Musée national Picasso-Paris, inv. MP647. 9. Collection de la Fondation Giacometti, Paris. 10. Collection de la Fondation Giacometti, Paris. 11. Collection de la Fondation Giacometti, Paris. 12. Collection de la Fondation Giacometti, Paris. 13. Collection du Musée national Picasso-Paris, inv. MP551-552. 14. Collection de la Fondation Giacometti, Paris. 15. Collection de la Fondation Giacometti, Paris. 16. Exposées au musée des Arts décoratifs novembre 1923-janvier 1924, « Exposition de l’art indigène des colonies d’Afrique et d’Océanie ». 17. Lettre d’Alberto Giacometti à Pierre Matisse, 22 février 1951, Pierre Matisse Gallery Archive, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. 18. Collection de la Fondation Giacometti, Paris, inv. 1994-0250 ; Breton et Dalí voient l’œuvre à la Galerie Pierre en 1930, à l’exposition « Miro, Arp, Giacometti ». 19. Cahiers d’art, n 8-9, 1929, p. 342-353. o 20. Lettre d’Alberto Giacometti à ses parents, 23 octobre 1929, Archives du SIKISEA, Zurich, inv. 274.A.2.1.99. 21. Collection de la Fondation Giacometti, Paris. 22. Photographié par Brassai dans l’atelier vers 1933, pour la revue Minotaure, no 3-4, 1933, p. 47. 23. Collection du Musée national Picasso-Paris, inv. MP291. 24. « Giacometti », galerie Pierre Colle, 4-17 mai 1932 ; voir Lettre d’Alberto Giacometti à ses parents, 6 mai 1932, Alberto Giacometti-Stiftung, Zurich : « Le premier à arriver fut Picasso qui vint à midi et demi ! Il regarda et dit : “très joli” comme un enfant […] mais il ne se compromet jamais, d’ailleurs il est reconnu pour ça. » 25. Collection du Musée national Picasso-Paris, inv. MP139. 26. Collection du Musée national Picasso-Paris, inv. MP1990-110. 27. Collection du Musée national Picasso-Paris, inv. MP1113. 40. Collection du Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou. 41. Collection du Musée national Picasso-Paris, inv. MP1875, folio 12 recto. 42. Collection de la Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhague. 43. Archives de la Fondation Giacometti, Paris. 44. Collection du Musée national Picasso-Paris, inv. MP1874, folio 40 recto. 45. Collection de l’Alberto Giacometti-Stiftung, Zurich, inv. GS 23. 46. Collection du Musée national Picasso-Paris, inv. MP290. 47. Collection du Musée national Picasso-Paris, inv. MP1058 et MP1060. 48. Aujourd’hui détruite, nous ne connaissons cette œuvre que par des photographies de Man Ray, publiées dans Cahiers d’art, no 8-10, 1932, p. 339. 49. C’est le cas du Nu debout au bord de la mer de 1929, Collection du Metropolitain Museum of Art, inv. 1996.403.4. 28. Collection du Musée national Picasso-Paris, inv. MP2395. 29. Connue par des photos anonymes prises dans l’atelier aujourd’hui dans les Archives de la Fondation Giacometti, Paris. 30. Collection de la Fondation Giacometti, Paris. 31. Collection du Musée national Picasso-Paris, inv. MP265. 32. Collection du Museum of Modern Art, New York. 33. Collection de l’Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. 34. Documents, no 4, septembre 1929, p. 214. 35. Ibid. p. 210. 36. Collection Stockholm. du Moderna Museet, 37. Georges Bataille, « Soleil pourri », Documents, no 3, 1930, p. 173-174. 38. Collection du Musée national Picasso-Paris, inv. MP1874. 39. Collection de la Fondation Giacometti, Paris. Colloque Picasso Sculptures Serena Bucalo-Mussely : Picasso/Giacometti 8 OBJECTS OF EXPERIMENTATION: BOCCIONI AND PICASSO Rosalind McKever • Colloque Picasso Sculptures • 25 mars 2016 I n spring 1914 Umberto Boccioni wrote in a letter to Roberto Longhi that Picasso should “sweep away his humble objects of experimentation”, unhappy with the influence of his collage and sculpture pipes, bottles, artists’ interest in the use of mass-produced objects as guitars and glasses. Boccioni’s phrase inspired my the subject or material for their sculptures, and their interest in shifting the narrative away from the story own and others’ replication of their work, reintroduc- Picasso’s influence on Boccioni to one about the two ing the sculptors on this ground adds greater nuance to sculptors’ use of objects, in mixed media and bronze. these aspects of their relationship. This paper also owes much to the New York and Paris The interaction between Picasso and Boccioni in the exhibitions, and their increased precision in Picasso’s sculptural realm begins at this fulcrum between the chronology and emphasis on the dissemination of his former’s bronze and the latter’s mixed-media exper- sculptures during his lifetime. These struck a chord iments. The narrative of Boccioni’s first forays into with my work on Boccioni, which has perhaps similar sculpture has been framed in as a response to Picasso’s aims, if for an artist with very different circumstances. Head of a Woman (Fernande) (1909).2 Boccioni could Boccioni made fourteen plaster and mixed-media sculp- have seen a cast in Ambroise Vollard’s gallery when tures, but following his untimely death in August 1916, he was in town for the Futurists Bernheim-Jeune only four have survived. Nine of those lost are known exhibition in February 1912. On 15 March he wrote through photographs, giving intriguing glimpses into to Vico Baer: “These days I am obsessed with sculp- his process, and making clear the importance of mixed ture!”3 Boccioni returned to Paris in June, and it was media in his first sculptures. As I will outline in this on this occasion that he toured the sculpture studios paper, and as addressed in previous scholarship by of Archipenko, Agéro, Brancusi and Duchamp-Villon.4 Christine Poggi and Maria Elena Versari, Boccioni was In July he returned to Milan, wrote the manifesto of, using manufactured, multiple, objects in his sculptures backdating it to 11 April 1912, and then began to in combination with modelled elements. sculpt in August. Thus, Boccioni’s response to Picas- Pivoting from multiple objects within sculptures, to so’s sculpture was far from immediate. sculptures as multiple objects, this paper also addresses The work thought to show the Italian’s response was bronze editions. Boccioni is perhaps best known as a Antigraceful (1913, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Mod- sculptor due to the multitude of posthumous bronze erna, Rome), for reasons both formal and chrono- and brass casts in art museums worldwide. For Picasso, logical. The formal comparability is enhanced by it on the other hand, his prodigious sculptural output has being Boccioni’s only surviving bust, and the sole seemed to require constant reintroduction to the public work he painted with a bronze-coloured patina. Its since the 1966 Petit Palais exhibition. This paper con- status as Boccioni’s first work was initiated by Long- siders whether the casting and dissemination of Picas- hi’s extended essay on Boccioni’s sculptures in 1914.5 so’s bronzes affected those of Boccioni. Given both However, Laura Mattioli has convincingly dated Anti- 1 graceful to April–May 1913, over a year after his supposed first encounter with Picasso’s sculpture.6 Colloque Picasso Sculptures Rosalind McKever : Objects of Experimentation 1 or Braque.14 The assemblage elements in Fusion of a Head and a Window function as themselves, except the glass eye serving as a real eye. The wire profile Fusion of a Head and a Window (figs 1–2) was likely may have a status closer to the plaster of the body the first, made in August–September 1912. This dat- than these elements, but recalls Picasso’s decision not ing is based on a letter to Severini in which Boccioni to use wire on Fernande because he had considered it describes himself as “battling with sculpture”, contin- too literal, too much like painting.15 uing, “The Cubists are wrong … Picasso is wrong.”7 The literalness of manufactured collage elements The work closely follows the ideals of the Futurist was noted in February 1914 when Florentine writer Sculpture manifesto. In the text Boccioni argued for Giovanni Papini, who edited Lacerba, published the the use of numerous heterogeneous materials, listing article “The Circle is Closing”.16 Papini lambasted Boc- “glass, wood, cardboard, iron, cement, hair, leather, cioni and Picasso, and others, for an artistic tendency cloth, mirrors, electric lights, and so on”. Fusion fea- that he summaries as : 8 tures a real window and pane of glass, a knot of real hair, a glass eye and a wire facial profile.9 The argument that Boccioni’s encounter with Parisian sculpture first manifests in the mixed-media Fusion, rather than the plaster Antigraceful, emphasizes the “the way in which the lyrical and rational transformation of things is being replaced by the things themselves”.17 importance of including and representing objects.10 It Boccioni responded that in Futurism objects become is uncertain whether Boccioni could have seen exam- part of the work of art through their inclusion in it. ples of Picasso’s adoption of Georges Braque’s “papery Papini retorted that Picasso is less literal.18 The Glasses and powdery techniques” when in Paris in November of Absinthe are interesting case in point; the appar- 1912 for the Salon d’Automne, or indeed Braque’s ently literal spoon can also be read as a hat, trans- own works, when in the city in five months earlier.11 forming the still life into a portrait.19 After one of his Parisian sojourns, Boccioni wrote to Picasso’s Glasses mark a moment of exchange, closely Severini asking him to go to Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler related to Boccioni’s bottles, a motif he plucked from to get photographs of Braque and Picasso’s latest the lower-left corner of Picasso’s portrait of Kahn- works. This letter likely dates from July 1912, when weiler (autumn 1910, Art Institute of Chicago). Boc- Picasso’s Still Life with Chair Caning (spring 1912, cioni exhibited Form-Forces of a Bottle and the red and Musée Picasso, Paris)—his only mixed-media work by white versions of Development of a Bottle in Space at that date —had not been photographed. In short, Galerie La Boetie in June–July 1913. Picasso was away Boccioni’s divergence from Picasso’s use of objects for the opening, but went to the gallery for Boccioni’s was unlikely a conscious one; indeed it was a “logical Conférence contradictoire there on 27 June 1913.20 12 internal development” within Futurism.13 As Poggi has discussed, Severini’s collage and Boccioni’s sculpture was more literal than that of Picasso Colloque Picasso Sculptures Rosalind McKever : Objects of Experimentation 2 Development of a Bottle in Space (fig. 3) is probably Boccioni’s first purely plaster sculpture, abandoning the relationship between the real and the modelled, which Picasso found so interesting in the Glass of three casts—two Unique Forms (fig. 4) and one Bot- Absinthe. This relationship is amplified by the casting tle—one of the former sold to the Comune di Milano in of the work in bronze, as the absinthe glass itself, and 1934, the others to the Museum of Modern Art, New indeed the spoon, like the cast artwork, would have York in 1948 (eight years after MoMA bought their been produced using a mould. The same can be said of first Picasso bronze, a Fernande). Indeed according to wine bottles, and so this point transfers to the Futurist Benedetta Marinetti, these casts were supposedly ful- sculptures. Boccioni likely created his two identical, filling Boccioni’s intention, although the only source if differently coloured, plaster bottles by casting one for this is a letter she wrote to Alfred H. Barr, to whom from the other. This was then used to create the post- she was trying to sell the works.24 Notably, Marinetti humous bronze casts—further emphasising the rela- had the Bottle plated in white metal, perhaps to evoke tionship between the art objects as multiples, and the the white surface of one of the plaster originals. multiplicity of the objects which they represent. The next edition of Boccioni casts, commissioned by 21 Benedetta Marinetti after making an agreement with While Picasso’s Glasses have managed to maintain Barr, have a markedly different aesthetic.25 These casts their limited edition through their painting, this was of Unique Forms (fig. 5) feature the base present on the not the case for Boccioni’s Bottles, which have been plaster original and are rougher (perhaps even rougher posthumously reproduced far beyond the two ver- than the plaster itself, which has undergone major sions made by the artist. The casting of Boccioni restoration since the casting). The changes are more bronzes did not begin until 1931, fifteen years after apparent on Unique Forms than the Bottle, but a differ- the artist’s death. It was instigated by the Futurist ent alloy renders the Metropolitan Museum’s Bottle in a leader F.T. Marinetti who may have seen, or at least warmer tone, quite unlike the silver-plated MoMA cast, been aware of the Picasso bronzes already mentioned. and the very dark 1935 cast made by the Comune di By this date Vollard had produced numerous casts of Milano.26 When reflecting on her choices for these casts Fernande (amongst other Picasso sculptures); Mari- in 1956, Benedetta explained that she wanted them to netti may well have seen them in Paris on the same be “more faithful to the original” than the overly pol- occasion as Boccioni, if not later, or in publications ished casts commissioned by her husband.27 such as Christian Zervos’s “Les Sculpteurs des peintres This aesthetic decision could be related to Picasso d’aujourd’hui” in Cahiers d’Art in 1928. bronzes. The Spanish artist’s sculptures were becom- However, there is no indication that Marinetti had ing increasingly known in Italy, in part thanks to Picasso’s bronzes in mind when commissioning the Enrico Prampolini’s small publication Picasso scul- 22 23 tore.28 The latter includes images of both Fernande (then at Galerie Rosengart) and a Glass of Absinthe (Philadelphia Museum of Art). Prampolini also Colloque Picasso Sculptures Rosalind McKever : Objects of Experimentation 3 wise commercial decision; she sold the bronzes she commissioned for more than that of the earlier ediemphasizes the relationship by opening his book on tion to MoMA.32 It is perhaps no coincidence that Picasso with a quote by Boccioni, and concluding by Boccioni and Picasso bronzes seem to become pop- questioning if Picasso’s most recent work freezes the ular with the American market at the same time, a dynamism in modern sculpture instigated by Boc- correlation which goes beyond the economic reasons cioni, Archipenko and others. that works were travelling from European to Ameri- Although Prampolini was part of Marinetti’s circle, can collections in the post-war period. Zervos, familiar with Picasso’s bronzes from his role The MoMA purchase of Boccioni sculptures in the late in their wartime care, seems to have played a more 1940s coincides with the acquisition of casts of Fer- active role in the appearance of the Boccioni bronzes nande by the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Albright- commissioned by Benedetta. The acquisitions note- Knox Art Gallery. By the mid-1950s, bronzes by both book of Harry and Lydia Winston, who bought one artists were widely collected in the United States. of each sculpture from this edition in 1956 (now in Before the Winstons acquired their bronzes, Peggy Gug- the Metropolitan Museum of Art), records that “Zer- genheim and Sidney Janis had both expressed interest vos helped in suggesting the finishing of the piece”.29 to Benedetta Marinetti.33 The Winston purchase came This is supported by my redating of these casts to in the same year that three Picasso bronzes enter the 1950 (rather than 1949) when Benedetta and Zer- MoMA collection—Glass of Absinthe, donated by Lou- vos collaborated on the Kunsthaus Zürich exhibition ise Reinhardt Smith, Goat Skull and Bottle (1951, cast of Futurist and Metaphysical Art and the 1950 spe- 1954) and Baboon and Young (October 1951, cast cial edition of the Cahiers d’Art dedicated to Italian 1955). The checklist of the 1957 Picasso: 75th Anni- art. This publication featured the Comune di Milano versary exhibition is a testament to the popularity of bronzes of the Bottle and Unique Forms, and the plas- Picasso bronze amongst American private collectors at ter original of Antigrazioso, suggesting that the new this time.34 Even though the same collectors were not casts were not yet made when it went to press.30 chasing both Picasso and Boccioni bronzes, it could be The decision to emulate the surface of the plaster, argued that the dissemination of the multiples by each rather than the smoother earlier edition, should not be artist affected the market for the other. confused as an attempt to imitate Picasso per se, but the comparative fidelity of his casts to their originals, a To conclude, the more precise chronologies for Boc- trend popular not only amongst Picasso devotees. The cioni and Picasso allow a more complex relationship collector Paolo Marinotti, when acquiring of the 1950 to emerge, highlighting how the sculptures as objects, Unique Forms wrote to Benedetta, before it was cast, and the objects within them, were “objects of experi- encouraging her to make it faithful to the original. mentation” well beyond the 1910s. 31 By adopting an aesthetic preferred by a better-known artist and collectors alike, Benedetta was making a Colloque Picasso Sculptures Rosalind McKever : Objects of Experimentation 4 UMBERTO BOCCIONI Development of a Bottle in Space through Form plaster, dimensions unknown UMBERTO BOCCIONI Fusion of a Head and a Window (front view) Mixed media, dimensions unknown. Sculpture destroyed Getty Research Institute Special Collections, Papers of F.T. Marinetti and Benedetta Cappa Marinetti, 1902-1965, Box 22, Folder 6 UMBERTO BOCCIONI Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 1913 (cast c.1950) Bronze, 121.3 x 88.9 x 40 cm New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1990.38.3 © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / image of the MMA Alexandre Mercereau posing next to Umberto Boccioni’s Fusion of a Head and a Windowat the artist’s exhibition of sculptures at the Galerie La Boëtie (June-July 1913). Colloque Picasso Sculptures Rosalind McKever : Objects of Experimentation 5 NOTES 1. Umberto Boccioni, Umberto Boccioni: Lettere Futuriste, ed. Federica Rovati (Rovereto: Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, 2009), p.122, no.151. 2. John Richardson, with Marilyn McCully, A Life of Picasso, vol. 2 (New York: Random House, 1996), p.139. 3. Boccioni, Lettere Futuriste, p.37, no.29. 4. Gino Severini, The Life of a Painter: The Autobiography of Gino Severini (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 110. Debates about the date of these visits have been settled by Maria Elena Versari, “The Style and Status of the Modern Art: Archipenko in the Eyes of the Italian Futurists”, Alexander Archipenko Revisited: An International Perspective, ed. by Marek Bartelik et al. (New York: The Archipenko Foundation, 2008), p.26, no.2. 5. The work is the first sculpture discussed in Roberto Longhi, “Futurist Sculpture Boccioni”, trans. Rosalind McKever and Lucinda Byatt, Art in Translation 7, no.3 (September 2, 2015): pp.311–342. 6. Laura Mattioli Rossi, “From a Sculpture of the Environment to Unique Forms of Continuity in Space”, in Unique Forms: The Drawing and Sculpture of Umberto Boccioni (London: Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, 2009), pp.7–25; Christine Poggi, In Defiance of Painting: Cubism, Futurism, and the Invention of Collage (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), p.20. 7. Maria Drudi Gambillo and Teresa Fiori, eds., Archivi del Futurismo, vol. 1 (Rome: De Luca, 1958), p.249. 8. Umberto Boccioni, “Futurist Sculpture”, reprinted in Lawrence Rainey, Christine Poggi, and Laura Wittman, eds., Futurism: An Anthology (New Haven, CT: Yale University, 2009), p.118. 9. Maria Elena Versari, “‘Impressionism Solidified’ - Umberto Boccioni’s Works in Plaster and the Definition of Modernity in Sculpture”, in Plaster Casts: Making, Collecting and Displaying from Classical Antiquity to the Present, ed. Rune Frederiksen and Eckart Marchand (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2010), p.343. Colloque Picasso Sculptures 10. Antigraceful originally featured two prongs of unknown material emerging from the plane behind the head. They appear to be metallic, but Roberto Longhi referred to them as paper-like, see Longhi, “Futurist Sculpture Boccioni”, p.316. 11. Poggi has argued that the Italian could have visited the Frenchman in Paris, in early June (p. 177), but Braun does not believe that he would have seen them: Emily Braun, “Vulgarians at the Gate”, in Boccioni’s Materia: A Futurist Masterpiece and the Avant-Garde in Milan and Paris, eds Laura Mattioli Rossi and Emily Braun (New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications, 2004), p.15, no.101. On the dating of Braque’s paper sculptures, see Christian Zervos, “Georges Braque et le developpement du cubism”, Cahiers d’Art 7, nos 1–2 (1932): p.23; Anne Umland and Ann Temkin, Picasso Sculpture (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2015), p.72. 12. Boccioni, Lettere Futuriste, 48, 232, no40, I thank Pepe Karmel for this information. 13. Braun, “Vulgarians at the Gate”, p.13. 14. Poggi, In Defiance of Painting, pp.175, 178. 15. Roland Penrose, Picasso Sculpture, Ceramics, Graphic Art (London: Tate Gallery, 1967), p.10. 16. Giovanni Papini, “The Circle is Closing” (15 February 1914) reprinted and translated in Rainey, Poggi and Wittman, pp.173–175. 17. Papini, “The Circle is Closing”, p.174. 18. Umberto Boccioni, “Il Cerchio non si chiude”, Lacerba (1 March 1914), pp.67– 69; Giovanni Papini “‘Cerchi aperti”, Lacerba (15 March 1914), pp.83–85. 19. I thank Christine Poggi for her insight on this issue. 20. Umland and Temkin, Picasso Sculpture, p.74. 21. Werner Spies and Christine Piot, Picasso: The Sculptures (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2000), p.88. 22. Maria Elena Versari, “Recasting the Past: On the Posthumous Fortune of Futurist Sculpture”, Sculpture Journal, 23.3 (2014): p.353. Rosalind McKever : Objects of Experimentation 23. Christian Zervos, “Les Sculpteurs des peintres d’aujourd’hui” in Cahiers d’Art 3, no.7 (1928): pp.176–189. 24. Benedetta Marinetti to Alfred Barr, 24 June 1948. Papers of F. T. Marinetti and Benedetta Cappa Marinetti, 920092, Box 8, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. 25. Today found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Hilti Art Foundation in Lichtenstein and the Kunsthaus Zurich. 26. The alloy for the Bottle used contains less copper and more zinc than that used for the Unique Forms. I thank Bruna Santarelli and Federico Carò of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Scientific Research department for this insight. 27. “per ottenere esemplari più fedeli all’originale.” Benedetta Cappa Marinetti, ‘Sculture di Umberto Boccioni’, typescript dated 1956 (contains reproductions of letters by Gaetano Chiurazzi, dated 21 August 1956; by Angelo Nicci, dated September 1956; and by Angelo Perego, dated 4 September 1956). Papers of F.T. Marinetti and Benedetta Cappa Marinetti, 920092, Box 7, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. 28. Enrico Prampolini, Picasso scultore (Rome: Libreria Fratelli Bocca, 1943). See also Giulia Veronesi ‘La popolarità di Picasso’, Emporium, CX.659, pp.221–227, although this does not include a bronze. 29. Lydia Winston Malbin Papers YCAL MSS 280, Box 57, The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT. Versari has also made this suggestion, based on a 1985 document: Versari, “‘Impressionism Solidified’”, p.360. 30. Cahiers d’Art : Un Demi-Siècle D’art Italien, ed. Christian Zervos (1950), 57, 58–59, 61. Zervos had illustrated the two Milan bronzes in a 1938 publication but the clichés were different, so this is not a simple case of recycling. Christian Zervos, Histoire de L’art Contemporain (Paris: Éditions Cahiers d’art, 1938), p.362. 6 NOTES 31. “La prego di far eseguire il lavoro in modo perfetto, chiaro il tono, genuino il tratto dell'artista.” Letter from Paolo Marinotti to Benedetta Marinetti, 31 October 1950. Papers of F. T. Marinetti and Benedetta Cappa Marinetti, 920092, Box 8, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. 32. Rosalind McKever, “Benedetta Marinetti and the Postwar Market for Umberto Boccioni Sculptures”, Getty Research Journal (forthcoming). 33. Peggy Guggenheim to Benedetta Marinetti, 17 October [1950]; Peggy Guggenheim to Benedetta Marinetti, 25 October [1950]; Benedetta Marinetti to Peggy Guggenheim, undated, papers of F. T. Marinetti and Benedetta Cappa Marinetti, 920092, Box 8, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. Sidney Janis to Benedetta Marinetti, 7 June 1956; Sidney Janis to Benedetta Marinetti, 8 May 1956, papers of F.T. Marinetti and Benedetta Cappa Marinetti, 920092, Box 7, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. 34. Alfred H. Barr, ed., Picasso: 75th Anniversary Exhibition (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1957). Colloque Picasso Sculptures Rosalind McKever : Objects of Experimentation 7 PICASSO/BOCCIONI IN PERSPECTIVE Maria Elena Versari • Colloque Picasso Sculptures • 25 mars 2016 W e are still not sure what compelled Boccioni to write the Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture follow- ing the succès de scandale of the Futurist Exhibition of Painting, held in Paris in February 1912. More than the The manifesto and its reverberation in the press cata- direct influence of one artist or another, I am inclined lyzed the activity of some artists working in Paris to believe that the conception and subsequent launch at that time. In his text, Boccioni had called for the of the Manifesto was Boccioni’s and Marinetti’s tactical use of different materials and even hypothesized response to the climate of expectations created by crit- the insertion of mechanical devices to impart move- ics and the press around modern sculpture, and Picas- ment to sculpture.3 A year later, his exhibited works so’s sculpture in particular. will not include any example of “mobile” sculptures. In January 1912, André Salmon, for example, had writ- Still, some time after the manifesto’s publication, ten in Paris-Journal : “Modern Sculpture : the painter Archipenko conceived and probably started working Picasso, without in any way throwing away his brushes, on the first version of Medrano, described as the first is undoubtedly going to execute some important sculp- mobile sculptural assemblage. In a handwritten note tural works.” One year later, Boccioni’s Manifesto of found in his scrapbooks, Archipenko dated Medrano I Futurist Sculpture had radically altered the expecta- to the fall of 1912.4 He repeatedly insisted on this tions surrounding modern sculpture — this in spite of date, and on the fact that 1912 marked a decisive turn the fact that its author had yet to exhibit any actual in his production. It was the moment when he started works derived from his theories. We can see it from the using a plurality of nontraditional materials in his note that André Warnod published in Comoedia in Feb- sculpture.5 Archipenko’s retrospective self-narrative ruary 1913, which reads : “This summer an exhibition demonstrates the extent to which Boccioni’s mani- will open, which will make people talk. It is a show of festo acted as a conceptual watershed for the defini- sculptures conceived along the theories expressed in a tion of modern sculpture. In those same months of recent manifesto. These statues will be articulated and 1912, Picasso drew several studies for constructions. mobile ; they will be activated by an engine installed for Toward the end of the year, probably mulling over this specific purpose.” Braque’s paper maquettes and busy with a newfound 1 2 One of the most difficult, but more interesting chal- interest in papier collés, he created his Guitar, made of lenges for the study of modern sculpture is keeping paper, strings, and wires.6 Soon after, in 1913, he also track of the game of anticipations and delayed, or even made one of the first examples of kinetic sculpture. indirect and misguided, influences. It is an analysis that The work, now destroyed, was conceived as a rudi- takes into consideration the distance between theoriza- mentary propeller : a thin wooden arm was mounted tion and realization, words and works, and the fact that on a central pin and attached with a hook to the top of each of the two might produce very different results. the structure. When unfastened, the arm would swing down, with a rotating movement.7 Right at the beginning of 1912, that is four days after André Salmon announced Picasso’s imminent involve- Colloque Picasso Sculptures Maria Elena Versari : Picasso/Boccioni in Perspective 1 Several of the works that he conceived and created between the fall of 1912 and the spring of 1913 and exhibited in Paris in 1913 exploited the material quality of plaster to achieve these goals. Plaster ment — or better re-involvement — in sculpture, allowed for the insertion of real objects such as a Ambroise Vollard sold the second bronze cast of Head of window, wig, glass eye, and a piece of railing in the a Woman to Alfred Stieglitz. Maybe it was the sale of sculptural mass. It allowed itself to be colored, stip- the bronze that spurred Picasso to return to sculpture. pled and textured ; to be inscribed over with words ; Indeed the contract he signed with Daniel-Henry Kahn- and, through the process of casting, it even allowed weiler in December of the same year explicitly mentions for an alternative view of the same work, colored or the possibility of providing the dealer with new sculp- left white.16 As Apollinaire remarked shortly after the tures, which was to be expected, given the fact that the exhibition’s opening, the fragility of plaster decreased 9 artist had already successfully worked in that medium. the sculptures’ chances for survival. He even advised Picasso’s Head of a Woman must have allowed Boccioni Boccioni to cast some of them “in bronze” in order to to visualize the three-dimensional materialization of ensure their continued existence — a suggestion that some of Picasso’s early formal exercises in painting, amounted to a tacit dismissal of the artist’s rejection of when, after publishing the manifesto, he started to traditional materials in favor of colored surfaces and transfer what had been the subject of so many his real objects.17 The tepid reception of his assemblages paintings into sculpture. The influence of Picasso’s in Paris pushed Boccioni to reconsider his original work is evident in the portraits of his mother that Boc- attitude toward the use of diverse materials. Writing cioni realized in this period across a wide variety of to Soffici at the time, he stated : “This had given me materials and techniques. In other terms, in 1912, doubts that I still haven’t solved. What do you think ? Picasso’s Cubist head had a more considerable impact Has everything that relies too much on materiality on Boccioni’s painting and on his first, hands-on exper- been extinguished in human sensibility ? 18 iments with sculpture than on his theorization of the The creation of plaster sculptures also allowed Boc- innovations necessary for this medium. cioni to reflect once again on the relation between In the Manifesto, Boccioni had called for the use of perception and form, an issue that had progressively a plurality of materials, such as “transparent planes, distanced him from Cubism. It is through sculpture glass, [celluloid], sheets of metal, wires, external or that he became even more critical of Picasso’s ana- internal electrical lights.” He had theorized the use lytical style. Working three-dimensionally, Boccioni of color to “increase the emotive force of the planes.” struggled with the question of the gaze, and of how And he had rejected the idea of the statue as an iso- to transform the interaction between object and lated idol that “carves itself out of and delineates itself background from a two-dimensional depiction to a 8 10 11 13 12 against the atmospheric background.” 14 Instead, he proclaimed, “Let’s open up the figure and enclose the environment within it.” 15 Colloque Picasso Sculptures Maria Elena Versari : Picasso/Boccioni in Perspective 2 three-dimensional construction. This is evident in the solutions that he found for the problem in Antigrazioso (1912 – 13) and Head + House + Light (1912 – 13). These two works present a motif that Boccioni This wire marks an important shift in Boccioni’s atti- had already addressed in his paintings. They show a tude toward sculpture and vision. While the intro- frontal view of Boccioni’s mother sitting at the bal- ductory text that he published in the catalogue of his cony, facing the interior, her back turned to the urban 1913 sculpture exhibition presents multi-materiality landscape visible over her shoulders. Head and house and linear dynamism as two co-existing, equally valid form a single mass, a continuum. Similarly, in Fusion procedures (and he could not do otherwise, lest he of a Head and a Window (1912 – 13) (fig. 1), the frame repudiate his manifesto), the manuscript of this same of a real window is mounted on the plaster mass of text shows that Boccioni had arrived at the second a woman’s head. The assemblage is dotted with the solution after struggling with the first. In the man- insertion of other real objects : part of a windowpane, uscript, in fact, he had written : “I thought that by a wig, a glass eye. It was in this way that Boccioni first decomposing this [material] unity into several mate- tried to achieve the goal, outlined in the Manifesto, of rials… we could have already obtained a dynamic fusing the object and its environment.19 element. But through the process of working I realized that the problem of dynamism in sculpture is not In Fusion of a Head and a Window, however, we find an contained in the diversity of materials but primarily in important metaphorical as well as literal deviation from the interpretation of form… We have therefore a more this route. A rare photograph of Alexandre Mercereau abstracted sculpture in which the spectator constructs posing next to Boccioni’s sculpture allows us to see a in his mind the forms that the sculptor suggests.” side-view of the sculpture.20 (fig. 2) The artist fashioned And probably reflecting on his own experiments with the profile of his mother with one single, metal wire, the wire outline, Boccioni also wrote : “The sculptural thus exploiting the traditional procedure of construct- ensemble becomes a volumetric space by offering the ing a plaster sculpture with an armature. This wire sense of depth from any profile, and not several fixed, should not be read simply as one of the new material immobile profiles, in silhouette.” 22 additions designated by the Manifesto in order to ren- The solution of the wire was therefore a transitional ovate sculpture. Thinly jutting out into space, it has no step toward the conceptualization of the linear dyna- real structural function and is almost invisible from the mism of Unique Forms. And it was felt by Boccioni as a front. Its role is metaphorical ; it suggests the idea of problematic solution because of its cerebralism. the head’s profile without depicting any realistic, visual It was too close to what he considered to be Picas- impression of a face. It is a contrivance that establishes so’s greatest limitation as an artist — his tendency to a conceptual alternative to the single frontal viewpoint. engage in “scientific analysis that examines life in the 21 cadaver, dissects muscles, arteries, and veins in order to study their function,”23 or his efforts “to re-invent human anatomy on the model of inanimate objects.” Colloque Picasso Sculptures Maria Elena Versari : Picasso/Boccioni in Perspective 3 Some of his collages of the spring-summer 1913 are devoted to the side view of a head. The Head now in Edinburgh, for example, consists of a human profile, encased in a pyramidal structure and positioned on Boccioni’s struggle with sculpture, perception, and a black pedestal — a configuration that calls to mind form find an echo in his book Futurist Painting Sculp- Fusion of a Head and a Window.30 Many years later, ture (Plastic Dynamism), where he wrote : “Picasso talking about Head of a Woman with Roland Penrose, copies the object in his formal complexity, decom- Picasso said : “I thought that the curves you see on the posing and enumerating its appearances. In this way, surface should continue into the interior. I had the he makes it impossible for himself to experience the idea of doing them in wire,” but “it was too intellec- object in its action. And he cannot do it because his tual, too much like painting.” 31 method — that is, the enumeration that I mentioned Boccioni’s and Picasso’s paths diverged when the Italian — stops the life of the object (its movement), detaches abandoned the use of polymateriality in order to con- its constitutive elements, and distributes them in the ceptualize Unique Forms of Continuity through Space. painting according to an accidental harmony that’s But a year later the Spanish artist offered an unexpected inherent to the object.” 25 solution exactly to the problems raised by Boccioni’s first Again, in Boccioni’s archive, we find the doubling of engagement with polychromy and polymateriality. a portrait in frontal and side views (perhaps the first Picasso’s tin sculptures and the bronze series of the idea for the wire profile), right under a scratched- Glass of Absinthe (1914) (fig. 3), in fact, furthered his out note on Cubism that reads : “the Cubists create research on collage aesthetics, but also distilled some an unreal environment.” Boccioni at this time was of Boccioni’s innovations into new formal and material trying to create a sculpture that was not limited to a choices. Compared with Boccioni’s still life, Develop- frontal gaze, as Medardo Rosso had done. But he was ment of a Bottle in Space, Picasso’s Glass avoids the also trying to steer away from the “plurality of succes- challenge of plastically conflating three objects (bot- sive views” recently theorized by Jean Metzinger and tle, glass, and plate), by focusing on one single item. 27 celebrated by critics as a conceptual key to Cubism. The glass, however, is topped by a real spoon — a In Futurist Painting Sculpture, we read : “We are not procedure that Boccioni had theorized and employed concerned only about the object given in its integrality in some of his earlier sculptures. Moreover, seen through Picasso’s higher-level analysis, as I have called from a side, Glass of Absinthe conjures up the profile it. Rather, we also want to convey the simultaneous a human face, a common feature in his collages but form that derives from the intense interaction devel- that in the case of this sculpture might also suggest oping between the object and its environment.” 28 an indirect reference to Boccioni’s struggle with the It is interesting to note that Picasso himself might wire silhouette.32 The work also marks the moment 26 have seen Boccioni’s wire profile and recognized it as something more congenial to his own work and to the “drawing in space” later codified by Gonzalez.29 Colloque Picasso Sculptures Maria Elena Versari : Picasso/Boccioni in Perspective 4 when Picasso embraced the Futurists’ obsession with color and appropriated and applied to tin and bronze some of Boccioni’s experiments with stippled, textured or colored plaster surfaces.33 Indeed, Picasso’s use of was only their publication under the title of “Nature stippling in painting and sculpture surfaced soon after morte” that sanctioned their status as autonomous Boccioni’s show. Finally, the surprising central opening works, creating a significant impact on the public of the glass, showing the level of the liquid contained identity of Picasso as a sculptor. This was particularly in it as a solidified plane, recalls, without citing it needed, since Boccioni’s exhibition of sculptures in explicitly, Boccioni’s merger of interior and exterior in June had left the public wondering about how the the Bottle. A more striking visual resemblance can be Cubists would respond. found with the upper neck of another sculpture that With the publication of these photographs, Picasso Boccioni exhibited in Paris : the later destroyed Force- entered into the debate over polymateriality and Forms of a Bottle (fig.  4). Glass of Absinthe seems to sculpture, inaugurated by Boccioni’s manifesto. It is solve, therefore, many of the conceptual and technical probable however that Apollinaire’s choice to make quandaries raised by Boccioni’s sculptures. It elegantly Picasso’s sculptural constructions public was the suggested a way to maintain artistic experimentalism result of a last-minute decision. within the requirements imposed by the art market. Les Soirées de Paris had stopped publication in June As Apollinaire had remarked, a sculpture should 1913. It returned to press in November under the be durable, and reproducible — two characteristics direction of Apollinaire and Serge Férat who, along that Boccioni’s colored plasters ostensibly lacked. with his sister Hélène d’Œttingen, financed its It was not however the colored and textured glass re-launch. We know that Apollinaire and Férat had that caught Boccioni’s attention. planned to illustrate the first issue of the new series As in the case of Archipenko’s experiments and with only one work by Picasso and some others from Braque’s three-dimensional studies in paper, Picas- the Salon d’Automne.36 In the end, the issue featured so’s early constructions remained mostly a private no works exhibited at the Salon. In addition to Picas- affair, until their publication in Les Soirées de Paris so’s Violin, glass, pipe and anchor (1912) it reproduced in 1913, five months after Boccioni’s exhibition of four of his sculptures. The reason for this is unclear sculptures in Paris.34 The unease with which, at that but it might have resulted from the Apollinaire’s dis- time, Kahnweiler described Picasso’s new works to appointment with the Salon, which he judged as “plus Vincent Kramàr is significant. He stressed that these que faible, cette année.” were not finished works — he called them “études en he was also concerned with the need to counter the papier pour des sculptures” — and he explicitly men- impression generated by the exhibition of Boccioni’s tioned the fact that they were not for sale. Indeed, it sculpture. The second installation of his review of the 35 37 It is clear, however, that Salon, published in the following issue, is in fact an elaborate argumentation for the centrality of French art, and against the preeminence of Futurism.38 Colloque Picasso Sculptures Maria Elena Versari : Picasso/Boccioni in Perspective 5 works had raised some doubts in him. Was it possible, he asked himself, that a new “architectural concept of the painting,” “limited on the surface and developed in depth,” had superseded and rendered obsoBoccioni certainly saw in Picasso’s constructions an lete the older concept of the monument, the statue echo of his own ideas, if not of his exhibited works. in the round ? But when, around 1915, he returned to sculpture, he conceivable only as a dialectical relationship between cautiously selected and reconfigured only a limited object and background ? Three months later, Picasso’s amount of details. In particular, he engaged with the constructions allowed Boccioni to reflect anew not protruding lower-right section of the paper guitar, only on the relationship between object and material which, in the photographs from Les Soirées, extends reality, but also on the idea of the gaze, which had toward the viewer. The journal’s illustration prob- defined so closely his earlier sculptures. ably also spurred Boccioni’s interest in the tabletop Compared to the works illustrated in Les Soirées de underneath the Guitar, which, as Christine Poggi has Paris, Boccioni’s assemblage reinstated the centrality suggested, has no real supportive value but extends of movement, and of the “necessity to plastically con- into the viewer’s space. The spatial instability and lat- ceive the world as continuity” 40 — two major Futurist eral dynamic tension created by this absurd tabletop, ideas that Boccioni would not recant. Picasso’s Con- slanted leftward, is further enhanced by the white struction with Guitar, however, allowed Boccioni to angled paper element underneath it. Boccioni recon- reformulate the idea of dynamism, which in Dyna- figured the visual disruptions of the frontal percep- mism of a Speeding Horse does not originate from the tion created by Construction with Guitar into a ploy clash of different materials or the multiplication of a to suggest movement itself. His Dynamism of a Speed- body’s visual outline, but is obtained by the contrast- ing Horse + Houses (fig. 5), completed in the spring ing interaction between the figure of the horse in the of 1915 and now heavily restored, was originally foreground and the angular projection of the houses conceived so that the body of the horse in the fore- in the background. ground protruded outward from the vertical plane of Two photographs taken in Marinetti’s apartment in the mostly white cardboard houses in the back. The the 1930s have further complicated the issue, causing horse’s head was positioned forward, suggesting the scholars to question whether Boccioni’s Horse should progressive detachment of the animal running away be considered a self-standing sculpture or a wall-re- from the background. The fact that, two years after lief, in the style of Picasso’s published Construction41. his 1913 exhibition, Boccioni decided to return to More research is needed to solve this issue (the hooks work on a multi-material assemblage in a style so used to hang the work are not visible in some pho- different from that of his earlier works reveals the tographs from Boccioni’s studio), but in any case, 39 In other terms, was sculpture now extent to which his ideas on sculpture had changed in the meantime. As we know, in the days following the show, he had written to Soffici that the reactions to his Colloque Picasso Sculptures Maria Elena Versari : Picasso/Boccioni in Perspective 6 whether Boccioni himself voiced the plan to hang the sculpture to the wall, or whether this was Marinetti’s idea to further “enhance” his fellow Futurist’s masterwork, Dynamism of a Speeding Horse + Houses was eventually reconfigured and updated according to Picasso’s published constructions — works that Boccioni, in turn, surely felt originated from his own. In conclusion, the relationship between Picasso’s and Boccioni’s sculpture, far from a simple set of direct influences, reveals a more complex game of anticipations and delayed responses. Sculpture did not become simply a field in which to test the validity of one’s ideas in painting. It established a cautious dialogue that was held at a distance and was constantly redefined by public expectations and by the struggle to find a balance between radical innovation and artistic distinctiveness and coherence. Colloque Picasso Sculptures Maria Elena Versari : Picasso/Boccioni in Perspective 7 PABLO PICASSO Verre d’absinthe, Paris, Printemps 1914 Bronze peint et sablé, 21,5 x 16,5 x 6,5 cm Musée national d’art moderne, Paris. AM1984629 © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Philippe Migeat © Succession Picasso, 2016 FIG. 1  Fusion of a Head and a Window, 1912-13, plaster, objects and mixed media. Work destroyed FIG. 4  UMBERTO BOCCIONI Force-Forms of a Bottle (detail), 1912-13 Plaster. Work destroyed. © image Courtesy of Getty Research Institute FIG. 2  Alexandre Mercereau posing next to Umberto Boccioni’s Fusion of a Head and a Windowat the artist’s exhibition of sculptures at the Galerie La Boëtie (JuneJuly 1913). Image Courtesy of Skira, Milan FIG. 5  UMBERTO BOCCIONI Dynamism of a Speeding Horse + Houses, 1915 Gouache, oil, paper collage, wood, cardboard, copper, and iron, coated with tin or zinc The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice Colloque Picasso Sculptures Maria Elena Versari : Picasso/Boccioni in Perspective 8 NOTES 1. The text is cited in Pepe Karmel, Picasso and the Invention of Cubism (New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, 2003), p.168. 2. André Warnod, “Petites Nouvelles des Lettres et Arts,” Comoedia, February 22, 1913, p.3. 3. Boccioni wrote : “Therefore, perceiving bodies and their parts as plastic zones, in a Futurist sculptural composition, we’ll use wooden or metal planes, immobile or mechanically mobile, in order to depict an object.” See Umberto Boccioni, Futurist Painting Sculpture (Plastic Dynamism), ed. and trans. Maria Elena Versari, trans. Richard Shane Agin (Los Angeles : Getty Research Institute, 2016), p.182. 4. The note was written on a photograph of the work taken from a 1919 journal clipping. See M. E. Versari, “The Style and Status of the Modern Artist : Archipenko in the Eyes of the Italian Futurists,” in Alexander Archipenko Revisited : An International Perspective, ed. Deborah Goldberg and Alexandra Keiser (Bearsville, NY : The Archipenko Foundation, 2008), pp.13–33. Archipenko stated that the work had been exhibited in Budapest in 1913, but the catalogue of the show does not list Medrano (see Katalógus a Művészház nemzetközi posztimpresszionista kiállításához, Művészház, Budapest 1913, p.13. I would like to thank Dr. Sándor Tibor of the Ervin Szabó Medtropolitan Library for providing me with a copy of this catalogue). Since we lack additional documentation on this now destroyed sculpture, Ilaria Cicali has suggested that Archipenko worked in the same period (second part of 1913 – early 1914) on Medrano I and Medrano II, as well as on Carrousel-Pierrot, another sculpture devoted to the theme of the circus. See Ilaria Cicali, “Archipenko e Boccioni,” in L’uomo nero. Materiali per una storia delle arti della modernità 13, n. 26 (forthcoming, 2016. My thanks go to Ilaria Cicali for sharing this essay with me). However, it is also possible that Archipenko was not completely mistaken in his recollections and at least started to work on Medrano I at the end of 1912. In this case, Medrano II might constitute a reworking of the previous sculpture, damaged at some point between the end of 1912 and 1913. As for Carrousel Pierrot, while it is true that it, too, addresses the theme of the circus, its formal unity and rejection of multi-materiality point to an ulterior, subsequent turn in Archipenko’s production. 5. See, for instance, his accounts reported in Erich Wiese, Alexander Archipenko. Mit Einem Titelbild und 52 Abbildungen (Leipzig : Klinkhardt und Biermann, 1923), p.5. 6. For the most recent discovery and critical reassessment of Guitar, see Christine Poggi, “Picasso’s First Constructed Sculpture : A Tale of Two Guitars,” The Art Bulletin 94, n. 2 (2012) : pp.274–298. See also Ileana Parvu, La peinture en visite. Les constructions cubistes de Picasso (Bern : Peter Lang, 2007) and Picasso Guitars 1912 – 1914, ed. Anne Umland (New York : The Museum of Modern Art, 2011). 7. See the illustration of the work, in which the hook is clearly distinguishable, in Les Soirées de Paris, n. 18, November 1913, plate p. 39. A photo of the work is also present in the archives of Kahnweiler’s gallery under the title Bouteille et guitare, while the Musée Picasso houses a preliminary sketch for the work (MP 706), as indicated by Alexandra Parigoris, “Les constructions cubistes dans Les Soirées de Paris : Apollinaire, Picasso et le clichés Kahnweiler,” Revue de l’Art (1988), pp.61 – 74. 8. See Dian Widmaier Picasso, “Vollard and the Sculptures of Picasso,” in Cézanne to Picasso : Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde, ed. by Rebecca A. Rabinow (New York : The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006), pp.182–188, particularly p. 185. 9. For the contract, dated December 18, 1912, see Parvu, La peinture en visite, p.54. Colloque Picasso Sculptures Maria Elena Versari : Picasso/Boccioni in Perspective 10. Apollinaire was the first to suggest a relationship between Picasso’s Head of a Woman and Boccioni’s sculpture. See Apollinaire, “First Exhibition of Futurist Sculpture,” in Apollinaire on Art, 320 as well as John Golding, Boccioni’s Unique forms of Continuity in Space (Newcastle upon Tyne : University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1985), 16. Flavio Fergonzi suggests Picasso’s 1909 paintings as a source for Boccioni’s 1912 treatment of his mother’s face in Materia (1912, reworked 1913). While it is important to consider the interchanges between sculpture and painting in Picasso’s works of this period, I believe that we can also identify a direct influence of Picasso’s sculpture on the contrast between the sunken left cheek and the protruding right eye and cheekbone of Materia. See Fergonzi’s entry for Materia in The Mattioli Collection, ed. Flavio Fergonzi (Milan : Skira-The Solomon Guggenheim Foundation, 2003), p.168. 11. For Boccioni’s painting and sculpture in this period, see L. Mattioli Rossi (ed.), “Dalla scultura d’ambiente alle forme uniche della continuità nello spazio,” in Boccioni Pittore Scultore Futurista (Milan : Skira, 2006), pp.16 – 81 and Fergonzi, “The Question of ‘Unique Forms’: Theory and Works,” in Italian Futurism 1909 – 1944: Reconstructing the Universe, ed. Vivien Greene (New York : Guggenheim Museum, 2014), pp.127 – 130. On the impact of the Cubist Head of a Woman, see also my “Impressionism Solidified — Umberto Boccioni’s Works in Plaster and the Definition of Modernity in Sculpture,” in Plaster Casts : Making, Collecting and Displaying from Classical Antiquity to the Present, ed. Rune Frederiksen and Eckart Marchand (Berlin : De Gruyter, 2010), pp.331 – 350. 12. Boccioni, Futurist Painting Sculpture, 182. The French version of the manifesto originally read “transparent planes of glass and celluloid,” see ibid., 282 n. 23. 9 NOTES 13. Ibid., p.182. 14. Ibid., p.181. 15. Ibid., p.182. 16. For the conceptual implications of these practices, and their impact on the reception and reproduction of Boccioni’s works, see my “Impressionism Solidified” and the more recent “Recasting the Past : On the Posthumous Fortune of Futurist Sculpture,” Sculpture Journal 23, Issue 3 (November 2014) : pp.349 – 368. 17. For Apollinaire’s comments, see Umberto Boccioni. Lettere Futuriste, ed. Federica Rovati (Rovereto : Egon-Mart, 2009), p.72. 18. Ibid., p.74. 19. Laura Mattioli Rossi has recently suggested that since Boccioni abandoned the use of color and real objects in his later sculptures representing the human form in movement, we should date his sculptures individually, according their progressive detachment from the idea of polymateriality, She therefore identifies Fusion of a Head and a Window as Boccioni’s first sculpture, followed by Head + House + Light, and Antigrazioso. While there is indeed a formal evolution in Boccioni’s sculptural production, I believe that its roots lay not so much in a refusal of polymateriality per se, but in a deeper conceptual reconsideration of what he identified as the roots of visual dynamism and the limits of Analytic Cubism, the central themes of his theoretical reflections of the time. For more on this, see my “Impressionism Solidified.” Boccioni himself dated both Antigrazioso and Fusion of a Head and a Window to 1913 in two notes attached to the photographs of these two works, referring to their date of completion. From his letters, we know however that, in November 1912, he was busy working on sculpture and that, in June 1913, he still planned to “retouch” his works in Paris, before the opening of the show (See Umberto Boccioni. Lettere, pp.58 Colloque Picasso Sculptures – 59 and 72). From photographs of his studio from the spring of 1913, we know that at that date Antigrazioso and Head + House + Light were still unfinished. Fusion of a Head and a Window does not appear in these photographs. The lack of information surrounding the artist’s technical procedures renders quite difficult any effort in dating with precision his works. It is clear however that, in May – June 1913, Boccioni still added to his earlier sculptures some of the details (real objects ; colored surfaces ; words) that he called for in the Manifesto and that he had originally envisioned for them, even if his conception of sculpture had changed in the meantime as exemplified by his later Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913). In any case, his letter to Soffici from July 1913 shows that the real turning point in Boccioni’s attitude toward materiality came only after the tepid reception of his assemblages in Paris. See Umberto Boccioni. Lettere futuriste, p.74. 20. Until now, the identity of the man posing next to the sculpture was unknown. 21. Boccioni, untiled ms. (“Prefazione al Catalogo della Prima Esposizione di Scultura”), 4 handwritten pages, Umberto Boccioni Papers, acc. no 880380, box 3 folder 2, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. 22. Ibid. 23. Boccioni, Futurist Painting Sculpture, p.92. 24. Pepe Karmel, “Beyond the Guitar : Painting, Drawing, and Construction, 1912 – 14,” in Picasso : Sculptor/Painter, eds. Elizabeth Cowling and John Golding (London : Tate Gallery, 1994), p.195. 25. Ibid. 26. Boccioni, loose sheet, Umberto Boccioni Papers, acc. no 880380, box 3 folder 28, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. The sheet is contained in a folder of notes used for the chapter of Futurist Painting Sculpture titled “What Divides us from Cubism.” Maria Elena Versari : Picasso/Boccioni in Perspective 27. Quoted in Maurice Verne, “Visages et Paysages : Un jour de pluie chez M. Bergson,” in L’Intransigeant, November 26, 1911, 1. For Boccioni’s reception of this concept, see my “Introduction,” in Boccioni, Futurist Painting Sculpture, p.20. 28. Boccioni, Futurist Painting Sculpture, p.109. 29. We know that Picasso returned to Paris from Céret around the time of the opening of Boccioni’s show. See his letter to Gertrude Stein dated June 19, 1913, in Pablo Picasso - Gertrude Stein. Correspondence, ed. Laurence Madeline (London : Seagull Books, 2008), p.93. While he was reported to be ill at the time, in a letter to Apollinaire dated June 24, he talks about visiting the writer, which would suggest that he was not bedridden. See Peter Read, Picasso and Apollinaire : The Persistence of Memory (Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, 2008), p.105. 30. This work (Tête, 1913, National Galleries of Scotland), formerly in André Breton’s collection, in generally dated to the spring of 1913, but it might have been created in the early summer of the same year. Compare it with Head of a Man with a Mustache (Ink, charcoal, and pencil on newspaper, May 6, 1913 or later, private collection) and his sketchbook from the spring-summer 1913, particularly page 75R. 31. Roland Penrose, “Introduction,” in Picasso  : Sculpture - Ceramic - Graphic Work (London : Arts Council of Great Britain, 1967), p.10. 32. I am grateful to Christine Poggi for this suggestion. For the use of these visual puns, and specifically of the reference to human faces, in Picasso’s work, see Poggi, In Defiance of Painting : Cubism, Futurism, and the Invention of Collage (New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, 1992), pp.55 – 57. 10 NOTES 33. For Picasso’s use of color and stippling, see Rebecca Rabinow, “Confetti Cubism,” in Cubism : The Leonard A. Lauder Collection, eds. Emily Braun and Rabinow (New York : The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2014), pp.156 – 163. 34. See Poggi, In Defiance of Painting, 3 ; Alex Danchev, Georges Braque : A Life (New York : Skyhorse Publishing Inc., 2012), pp.70 – 71. See also Read, Picasso and Apollinaire, p.87. 35. The letter is dated December 4, 1913. In it, Kahnweiler also refers to some “études en bois.” See Parvu, La peinture en visite, p.54. 36. Se Férat’s letter to Soffici, Paris, October 31, 1913, in Ardengo Soffici, Serge Férat, and Hélène d’Œttingen, Correspondance 1903-1964, ed. Barbara Meazzi (Lausanne : L’Âge d’Homme, 2013), p.339. 37. Guillaume Apollinaire, “Salon d’Automne,” Les Soirées de Paris, n. 18, November 1913, p.6. 38. Guillaume Apollinaire, “Le Salon d’Automne (Suite),” Les Soirées de Paris, n. 19, December 1913, p.46. 39. Boccioni, Lettere futuriste, p.74. 40. Boccioni’s letter to Emilio Cecchi, July 19, 1914, in Boccioni, Lettere futuriste, p.125. 41. See Federica Rovati, “Opere di Umberto Boccioni tra 1914 e 1915,” Prospettiva, no. 112 (2005) : pp.44 – 65. Colloque Picasso Sculptures Maria Elena Versari : Picasso/Boccioni in Perspective 11 OBJECTS OF EXPERIMENTATION : BOCCIONI & PICASSO Rosalind McKever • Colloque Picasso Sculptures • 25 mars 2016 I n spring 1914 Umberto Boccioni wrote in a letter to Roberto Longhi that Picasso should “sweep away his humble objects of experimentation”, unhappy with the influence of his collage and sculpture pipes, bottles, so’s bronzes affected those of Boccioni. Given both guitars and glasses. Boccioni’s phrase inspired my artists’ interest in the use of mass-produced objects as interest in shifting the narrative away from the story the subject or material for their sculptures, and their Picasso’s influence on Boccioni to one about the two own and others’ replication of their work, reintroduc- sculptors’ use of objects, in mixed media and bronze. ing the sculptors on this ground adds greater nuance to This paper also owes much to the New York and Paris these aspects of their relationship. exhibitions, and their increased precision in Picasso’s The interaction between Picasso and Boccioni in the chronology and emphasis on the dissemination of his sculptural realm begins at this fulcrum between the sculptures during his lifetime. These struck a chord former’s bronze and the latter’s mixed-media exper- with my work on Boccioni, which has perhaps similar iments. The narrative of Boccioni’s first forays into aims, if for an artist with very different circumstances. sculpture has been framed in as a response to Picas- Boccioni made fourteen plaster and mixed-media sculp- so’s Head of a Woman (Fernande) (autumn 1909).2 tures, but following his untimely death in August 1916, Boccioni could have seen a cast in Ambroise Vol- only four have survived. Nine of those lost are known lard’s gallery when he was in town for the Futur- through photographs, giving intriguing glimpses into ists Bernheim-Jeune exhibition in February 1912. his process, and making clear the importance of mixed On 15 March he wrote to Vico Baer : “These days media in his first sculptures. As I will outline in this I am obsessed with sculpture !”3 Boccioni returned paper, and as addressed in previous scholarship by to Paris in June, and it was on this occasion that he Christine Poggi and Maria Elena Versari, Boccioni was toured the sculpture studios of Archipenko, Agéro, using manufactured, multiple, objects in his sculptures Brancusi and Duchamp-Villon.4 In July he returned in combination with modelled elements. to Milan, wrote the manifesto of Futurist Sculpture, Pivoting from multiple objects within sculptures, to backdating it to 11 April 1912, and then began to sculptures as multiple objects, this paper also addresses sculpt in August. Thus, Boccioni’s response to Picas- bronze editions. Boccioni is perhaps best known as a so’s sculpture was far from immediate. sculptor due to the multitude of posthumous bronze The work thought to show the Italian’s response was and brass casts in art museums worldwide. For Picasso, Antigraceful (1913, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Mod- on the other hand, his prodigious sculptural output has erna, Rome), for reasons both formal and chrono- seemed to require constant reintroduction to the public logical. The formal comparability is enhanced by it since the 1966 Petit Palais exhibition. This paper con- being Boccioni’s only surviving bust, and the sole siders whether the casting and dissemination of Picas- work he painted with a bronze-coloured patina. 1 Its status as Boccioni’s first work was initiated by Longhi’s extended essay on Boccioni’s sculptures in 1914.5 However, Laura Mattioli has convincingly Colloque Picasso Sculptures Rosalind McKever : Objects of Experimentation 1 objects was unlikely a conscious one ; indeed it was a “logical internal development” within Futurism.13 As Poggi has discussed, Severini’s collage and Boccioni’s sculpture was more literal than that of Picasso dated Antigraceful to April – May 1913, over a year or Braque.14 The assemblage elements in Fusion of a after his supposed first encounter with Picasso’s Head and a Window function as themselves, except sculpture. the glass eye serving as a real eye. The wire profile 6 Fusion of a Head and a Window (figs 1 – 2) was likely may have a status closer to the plaster of the body the first, made in August – September 1912. This dat- than these elements, but recalls Picasso’s decision not ing is based on a letter to Severini in which Boccioni to use wire on Fernande because he had considered it describes himself as “battling with sculpture”, con- too literal, too much like painting.15 tinuing, “The Cubists are wrong… Picasso is wrong.” The literalness of manufactured collage elements was The work closely follows the ideals of the Futurist noted in February 1914 when Florentine writer Gio- Sculpture manifesto. In the text Boccioni argued for vanni Papini, who edited Lacerba, published the arti- the use of numerous heterogeneous materials, listing cle “The Circle is Closing”.16 Papini lambasted Boccioni “glass, wood, cardboard, iron, cement, hair, leather, and Picasso, and others, for an artistic tendency that cloth, mirrors, electric lights, and so on”. Fusion fea- he summaries as 7 8 tures a real window and pane of glass, a knot of real hair, a glass eye and a wire facial profile.9 The argument that Boccioni’s encounter with Parisian sculpture first manifests in the mixed-media Fusion, rather than the plaster Antigraceful, emphasizes the “the way in which the lyrical and rational transformation of things is being replaced by the things themselves”.17 importance of including and representing objects.10 It Boccioni responded that in Futurism objects become is uncertain whether Boccioni could have seen exam- part of the work of art through their inclusion in it. ples of Picasso’s adoption of Georges Braque’s “papery Papini retorted that Picasso is less literal.18 The Glasses and powdery techniques” when in Paris in November of Absinthe are interesting case in point ; the appar- 1912 for the Salon d’Automne, or indeed Braque’s ently literal spoon can also be read as a hat, transform- own works, when in the city in five months earlier.11 ing the still life into a portrait.19 After one of his Parisian sojourns, Boccioni wrote Picasso’s Glasses mark a moment of exchange, closely to Severini asking him to go to Daniel-Henry Kah- related to Boccioni’s bottles, a motif he plucked from nweiler to get photographs of Braque and Picasso’s the lower-left corner of Picasso’s portrait of Kahnweiler latest works. This letter likely dates from July 1912, (autumn 1910, Art Institute of Chicago). Boccioni when Picasso’s Still Life with Chair Caning (spring exhibited Form-Forces of a Bottle and the red and white 1912, Musée Picasso, Paris) — his only mixed-media work by that date — had not been photographed.12 In short, Boccioni’s divergence from Picasso’s use of Colloque Picasso Sculptures Rosalind McKever : Objects of Experimentation 2 versions of Development of a Bottle in Space at Galerie La Boétie in June – July 1913. Picasso was away for the opening, but went to the gallery for Boccioni’s Conférence contradictoire there on 27 June 1913.20 such as Christian Zervos’s “Les Sculptures des peintres Development of a Bottle in Space (fig. 3) is probably d’aujourd’hui” in Cahiers d’Art in 1928.23 Boccioni’s first purely plaster sculpture, abandoning However, there is no indication that Marinetti had the relationship between the real and the modelled, Picasso’s bronzes in mind when commissioning the which Picasso found so interesting in the Glass of three casts — two Unique Forms (fig. 4) and one Bottle Absinthe. This relationship is amplified by the casting — one of the former sold to the Comune di Milano in of the work in bronze, as the absinthe glass itself, and 1934, the others to the Museum of Modern Art, New indeed the spoon, like the cast artwork, would have York in 1948 (eight years after MoMA bought their been produced using a mould. The same can be said of first Picasso bronze, a Fernande). Indeed according to wine bottles, and so this point transfers to the Futurist Benedetta Marinetti, these casts were supposedly ful- sculptures. Boccioni likely created his two identical, filling Boccioni’s intention, although the only source if differently coloured, plaster bottles by casting one for this is a letter she wrote to Alfred H. Barr, to whom from the other. This was then used to create the post- she was trying to sell the works.24 Notably, Marinetti humous bronze casts — further emphasising the rela- had the Bottle plated in white metal, perhaps to evoke tionship between the art objects as multiples, and the the white surface of one of the plaster originals. multiplicity of the objects which they represent. The next edition of Boccioni casts, commissioned by 21 Benedetta Marinetti after making an agreement with While Picasso’s Glasses have managed to maintain Barr, have a markedly different aesthetic.25 These casts their limited edition through their painting, this was of Unique Forms (fig. 5) feature the base present on the not the case for Boccioni’s Bottles, which have been plaster original and are rougher (perhaps even rougher posthumously reproduced far beyond the two ver- than the plaster itself, which has undergone major sions made by the artist. The casting of Boccioni restoration since the casting). The changes are more bronzes did not begin until 1931, fifteen years after apparent on Unique Forms than the Bottle, but a differ- the artist’s death. It was instigated by the Futurist ent alloy renders the Metropolitan Museum’s Bottle in a leader F.T. Marinetti who may have seen, or at least warmer tone, quite unlike the silver-plated MoMA cast, been aware of the Picasso bronzes already mentioned. and the very dark 1935 cast made by the Comune di By this date Vollard had produced numerous casts of Milano.26 When reflecting on her choices for these casts Fernande (amongst other Picasso sculptures) ; Mari- in 1956, Benedetta explained that she wanted them to netti may well have seen them in Paris on the same be “more faithful to the original” than the overly pol- occasion as Boccioni, if not later, or in publications ished casts commissioned by her husband.27 22 This aesthetic decision could be related to Picasso bronzes. The Spanish artist’s sculptures were becoming increasingly known in Italy, in part thanks to Enrico Colloque Picasso Sculptures Rosalind McKever : Objects of Experimentation 3 collector Paolo Marinotti, when acquiring of the 1950 Unique Forms wrote to Benedetta, before it was cast, encouraging her to make it faithful to the original.31 Prampolini’s small publication Picasso scultore.28 By adopting an aesthetic preferred by a better-known The latter includes images of both Fernande (then artist and collectors alike, Benedetta was making a at Galerie Rosengart) and a Glass of Absinthe (Phila- wise commercial decision ; she sold the bronzes she delphia Museum of Art). Prampolini also emphasizes commissioned for more than that of the earlier edi- the relationship by opening his book on Picasso with tion to MoMA.32 It is perhaps no coincidence that a quote by Boccioni, and concluding by question- Boccioni and Picasso bronzes seem to become pop- ing if Picasso’s most recent work freezes the dyna- ular with the American market at the same time, a mism in modern sculpture instigated by Boccioni, correlation which goes beyond the economic reasons Archipenko and others. that works were travelling from European to Ameri- Although Prampolini was part of Marinetti’s circle, can collections in the post-war period. Zervos, familiar with Picasso’s bronzes from his role The MoMA purchase of Boccioni sculptures in the late in their wartime care, seems to have played a more 1940s coincides with the acquisition of casts of Fer- active role in the appearance of the Boccioni bronzes nande by the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Albright- commissioned by Benedetta. The acquisitions note- Knox Art Gallery. By the mid-1950s, bronzes by both book of Harry and Lydia Winston, who bought one artists were widely collected in the United States. of each sculpture from this edition in 1956 (now in Before the Winstons acquired their bronzes, Peggy Gug- the Metropolitan Museum of Art), records that “Zer- genheim and Sidney Janis had both expressed inter- vos helped in suggesting the finishing of the piece”. est to Benedetta Marinetti. This is supported by my redating of these casts to came in the same year that three Picasso bronzes enter 1950 (rather than 1949) when Benedetta and Zer- the MoMA collection — Glass of Absinthe, donated by vos collaborated on the Kunsthaus Zürich exhibition Louise Reinhardt Smith, Goat Skull and Bottle (1951, of Futurist and Metaphysical Art and the 1950 spe- cast 1954) and Baboon and Young (October 1951, cast cial edition of the Cahiers d’Art dedicated to Italian 1955). The checklist of the 1957 Picasso : 75th Anni- art. This publication featured the Comune di Milano versary exhibition is a testament to the popularity of bronzes of the Bottle and Unique Forms, and the plas- Picasso bronze amongst American private collectors at ter original of Antigrazioso, suggesting that the new this time.34 Even though the same collectors were not casts were not yet made when it went to press.30 chasing both Picasso and Boccioni bronzes, it could be The decision to emulate the surface of the plaster, argued that the dissemination of the multiples by each rather than the smoother earlier edition, should not be artist affected the market for the other. 29 33 The Winston purchase confused as an attempt to imitate Picasso per se, but the comparative fidelity of his casts to their originals, a trend popular not only amongst Picasso devotees. The Colloque Picasso Sculptures Rosalind McKever : Objects of Experimentation 4 To conclude, the more precise chronologies for Boccioni and Picasso allow a more complex relationship to emerge, highlighting how the sculptures as objects, and the objects within them, were “objects of experimentation” well beyond the 1910s. Colloque Picasso Sculptures Rosalind McKever : Objects of Experimentation 5 NOTES 1. Umberto Boccioni, Umberto Boccioni : Lettere Futuriste, ed. Federica Rovati (Rovereto : Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, 2009), p.122, n. 151. 2. John Richardson, with Marilyn McCully, A Life of Picasso, vol. 2 (New York : Random House, 1996), p.139. 3. Boccioni, Lettere Futuriste, 37, n. 29. 4. Gino Severini, The Life of a Painter : The Autobiography of Gino Severini (Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 1995), 110. Debates about the date of these visits have been settled by Maria Elena Versari, “The Style and Status of the Modern Art : Archipenko in the Eyes of the Italian Futurists”, Alexander Archipenko Revisited : An International Perspective, ed. by Marek Bartelik et al. (New York : The Archipenko Foundation, 2008), p.26, n. 2. 5. The work is the first sculpture discussed in Roberto Longhi, “Futurist Sculpture Boccioni”, trans. Rosalind McKever and Lucinda Byatt, Art in Translation 7, no. 3 (September 2, 2015) : pp.311 – 342. 6. Laura Mattioli Rossi, “From a Sculpture of the Environment to Unique Forms of Continuity in Space”, in Unique Forms : The Drawing and Sculpture of Umberto Boccioni (London : Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, 2009), 7 – 25 ; Christine Poggi, In Defiance of Painting : Cubism, Futurism, and the Invention of Collage (New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, 1992), p.20. 7. Maria Drudi Gambillo and Teresa Fiori, eds., Archivi del Futurismo, vol. 1 (Rome : De Luca, 1958), p.249. 8. Umberto Boccioni, “Futurist Sculpture”, reprinted in Lawrence Rainey, Christine Poggi, and Laura Wittman, eds., Futurism : An Anthology (New Haven, CT : Yale University, 2009), p.118. 9. Maria Elena Versari, “‘Impressionism Solidified’- Umberto Boccioni’s Works in Plaster and the Definition of Modernity in Sculpture”, in Plaster Casts : Making, Col- 10. Antigraceful originally featured two prongs of unknown material emerging from the plane behind the head. They appear to be metallic, but Roberto Longhi referred to them as paper-like, see Longhi, “Futurist Sculpture Boccioni”, p.316. 11. Poggi has argued that the Italian could have visited the Frenchman in Paris, in early June (p. 177), but Braun does not believe that he would have seen them : Emily Braun, “Vulgarians at the Gate”, in Boccioni’s Materia : A Futurist Masterpiece and the Avant-Garde in Milan and Paris, eds Laura Mattioli Rossi and Emily Braun (New York : Guggenheim Museum Publications, 2004), 15, n. 101. On the dating of Braque’s paper sculptures, see Christian Zervos, “Georges Braque et le developpement du cubism”, Cahiers d’Art 7, no 1 – 2 (1932) : 23 ; Anne Umland and Ann Temkin, Picasso Sculpture (New York : Museum of Modern Art, 2015), p.72. 12. Boccioni, Lettere Futuriste, 48, 232, n. 40, I thank Pepe Karmel for this information. 13. Braun, “Vulgarians at the Gate”, p.13. 14. Poggi, In Defiance of Painting, pp.175, 178. 15. Roland Penrose, Picasso Sculpture, Ceramics, Graphic Art (London : Tate Gallery, 1967), p.10. 16. Giovanni Papini, “The Circle is Closing” (15 February 1914) reprinted and translated in Rainey, Poggi and Wittman, pp.173 – 175. 17. Papini, “The Circle is Closing”, p.174. 18. Umberto Boccioni, “Il Cerchio non si chiude”, Lacerba (1 March 1914), pp.67– 69 ; Giovanni Papini “‘Cerchi aperti”, Lacerba (15 March 1914), pp.83 – 85. 19. I thank Christine Poggi for her insight on this issue. 20. Umland and Temkin, Picasso Sculpture, p.74. lecting and Displaying from Classical Antiquity to the Present, ed. Rune Frederiksen and Eckart Marchand (Berlin : Walter de Gruyter, 2010), p.343. Colloque Picasso Sculptures Rosalind McKever : Objects of Experimentation 21. Werner Spies and Christine Piot, Picasso : The Sculptures (Ostfildern : Hatje Cantz, 2000), p.88. 22. Maria Elena Versari, “Recasting the Past : On the Posthumous Fortune of Futurist Sculpture”, Sculpture Journal, 23.3 (2014) : p.353. 23. Christian Zervos, “Les Sculptures des peintres d’aujourd’hui” in Cahiers d’Art 3, no. 7 (1928) : pp.176 – 189. 24. Benedetta Marinetti to Alfred Barr, 24 June 1948. Papers of F. T. Marinetti and Benedetta Cappa Marinetti, 920092, Box 8, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. 25. Today found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Hilti Art Foundation in Lichtenstein and the Kunsthaus Zurich. 26. The alloy for the Bottle used contains less copper and more zinc than that used for the Unique Forms. I thank Bruna Santarelli and Federico Carò of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Scientific Research department for this insight. 27. “per ottenere esemplari più fedeli all’originale.” Benedetta Cappa Marinetti, ‘Sculture di Umberto Boccioni’, typescript dated 1956 (contains reproductions of letters by Gaetano Chiurazzi, dated 21 August 1956 ; by Angelo Nicci, dated September 1956 ; and by Angelo Perego, dated 4 September 1956). Papers of F.T. Marinetti and Benedetta Cappa Marinetti, 920092, Box 7, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. 28. Enrico Prampolini, Picasso scultore (Rome : Libreria Fratelli Bocca, 1943). See also Giulia Veronesi ‘La popolarità di Picasso’, Emporium, CX.659, pp.221 – 227, although this does not include a bronze. 29. Lydia Winston Malbin Papers YCAL MSS 280, Box 57, The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT. Versari has also made this suggestion, based on a 1985 document : Versari, “‘Impressionism Solidified’”, p.360. 6 NOTES 30. Cahiers d’Art : Un Demi-Siècle D’art Italien, ed. Christian Zervos (1950), 57, 58 – 59, 61. Zervos had illustrated the two Milan bronzes in a 1938 publication but the clichés were different, so this is not a simple case of recycling. Christian Zervos, Histoire de L’art Contemporain (Paris : Éditions Cahiers d’art, 1938), p.362. 31. “La prego di far eseguire il lavoro in modo perfetto, chiaro il tono, genuino il tratto dell’artista.” Letter from Paolo Marinotti to Benedetta Marinetti, 31 October 1950. Papers of F. T. Marinetti and Benedetta Cappa Marinetti, 920092, Box 8, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. 32. Rosalind McKever, “Benedetta Marinetti and the Postwar Market for Umberto Boccioni Sculptures”, Getty Research Journal (forthcoming). 33. Peggy Guggenheim to Benedetta Marinetti, 17 October [1950] ; Peggy Guggenheim to Benedetta Marinetti, 25 October [1950] ; Benedetta Marinetti to Peggy Guggenheim, undated, papers of F. T. Marinetti and Benedetta Cappa Marinetti, 920092, Box 8, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. Sidney Janis to Benedetta Marinetti, 7 June 1956 ; Sidney Janis to Benedetta Marinetti, 8 May 1956, papers of F.T. Marinetti and Benedetta Cappa Marinetti, 920092, Box 7, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. 34. Alfred H. Barr, ed., Picasso : 75th Anniversary Exhibition (New York : Museum of Modern Art, 1957). Colloque Picasso Sculptures Rosalind McKever : Objects of Experimentation 7