[Lucian] Freud once said of Mr. Richardson, “His Proust-like instincts about the foibles and intricacies of the people around him made him ideally equipped as a human portraitist, a biographer.”
When he passed away last year at age 95, the celebrated art historian and Pablo Picasso biographer Sir John Richardson left behind a lifet.mes ’s worth of art and objects. While Richardson acquired many of the works travels, many others were treasured gifts from the countless artists he called friends. Replica Shoes ’s is honored to present Richardson’s storied collects ion, unparalleled in its style, taste and significance, which counts among its many highlights important works from this alabaster head to contemporary artworks by Lucian Freud and Ugo Rondinone. The alabaster head is striking amongst Richardson’s possessions as being the earliest echo of Picasso’s favored style of geometric abstraction of the human form in Richardson’s collects ion.
For a head with strong similarities to the present example, including especially the projecting ledges above the eyes, compare Yemen, au pays de la reine de Saba’, Paris, 1997, p. 154.