“To draw is to take possession of the world and, very directly, of the women we have loved... One must keep in mind this exploratory role in order to capture the reach of these drawn works belonging to the last six years of [Picasso's] work.”
As the 1960s progressed, Pablo Picasso realised he was approaching the twilight years of his prolific career. His work was infused with memories of the past as he contemplated youth, beauty and love, reimagining, remembering and yearning through pencil and paint.
‘For the aged painter, the female model thus acquires an alternative identity of her own. She no longer simply serves as the love object; she now takes on the supernatural aura of the muse who is immortal… Picasso is actually trying to take possession of the muse, and by extension, to seize immortality in the process.’
During these later years, Jacqueline Roque was Picasso’s partner in life and his ultimate muse. She is instantly recognisable in this work with her long dark hair and although she never posed for Picasso her visage is present in his work from the early 1960s onward. As Marie-Laure Bernadac writes
‘It is characteristic of Picasso that he takes as his model—or as his Muse—the woman he loves and who loves with him, not a professional model. So what his paintings show is never a ‘model’ of a woman, but woman as model. This has its consequences for his emotional as well as his artistic life: for the beloved woman stands for ‘painting’, and the painted woman is the beloved: detachment is an impossibility.’
Nu couché is a spectacular example of Picasso’s mature drawings. Bold, expressive, sensual and erotic yet charged with yearning, speaking to both past and present lovers, past and present lives.