C onceived in Cannes in 1961, Homme au bâton exudes the same creative ingenuity of Picasso’s flat works. Executed in an edition of just two, the other example is held in the collects ion of the artist's estate. With its sharp linear construction, textured surface and elegantly curved features, Homme au bâton appears utterly unique from each different angle and eludes simultaneous perceptions; as Werner Spies explains, “This is due to the fact that at any given moment, we are confronted only with a planar image, and cannot – as with most modeled sculpture – anticipate the course our eye will peacefully follow” (Werner Spies, Picasso, The Sculptures, Worms, 2000, p. 286).

Picasso produced more than 120 sculptures during an intense period of creativity from 1960 to 1961. This final phase of Picasso’s sculptural oeuvre saw him move away from the robustly modeled forms of his ceramics towards constructions that were starkly planar and frontal in nature, recalling his early Cubist assemblages. Inspired in part by Matisse’s technique of “drawing with scissors” with his cut-outs of the 1940s, Picasso designed paper and cardboard maquettes which were then replicated exactly in a 1:1 scale at the small Société Tritub, a metal-tubings factory in Vallauris, using two different types of sheet.mes tal: a thinner one for small works and a thicker one for larger pieces.

Picasso’s experimental use of materials allowed him to create an elegantly curved arm and uniquely textured surface The breadth and versatility of Picasso’s sculpture was revealed at the Museum of Modern Art in 1967 with the influential exhibition The Sculpture of Picasso and reinforced with the landmark show Picasso Sculpture in 2016. Art critic Roberta Smith remarked:

The figure of the strongman in Homme au bâton recalls the artist’s early interest in the theme of the circus and its eccentric cast of characters. As early as 1905, Picasso depicted two circus figures in his masterpiece Acrobate à la Boule, in which the colossal figure in the foreground seems larger than life against the graceful, slender acrobat in the background (see fig. 1).

The present sculpture, which depicts a man holding a baton, also recalls one of the great achievements of Picasso's late career: his vibrant Arlequin au bâton from 1969 (see fig. 2). As in the case of this painted figure, the cast of gallant characters that populated the artist's pictures during the 1960s and 1970s were personifications of the artist himself. The musketeer, the man with the pipe and the harlequin, were all alter-egos, intended to recapture the lost virility of Picasso's youth. But in the final year of Picasso’s life, the harlequin figures "made their last appearance, as the slender silhouette of the mercurial Harlequin moved aside for a stocky, masked character aggressively brandishing a stick" (Brigitte Léal, Christine Piot, Marie-Laure Bernadac, The Ultimate Picasso, New York, 2000, p. 455). No longer the waifish, melancholic figure languished in Picasso's paintings at the beginning of the century, Arlequin au bâton waves his long, phallic baton high above his head and clasps a prickly shrub in the other–now Picasso's blatant emblem of masculinity at its most potent.

Picasso’s inspiration for this figure and other masculine warriors of his late paintings can be traced to his Spanish childhood and his familiarity with Cervantes’ Don Quixote. But the harlequin also signified for him the golden age of painting and allowed him to escape the limitations of contemporary subject matter. He drew inspiration from the work of two painters he had adored throughout his life: Diego Velázquez, whose portraits of 17th century Spanish nobility and sword-wielding monarchs were clear sources of inspiration for the present picture, and the Dutch master, Rembrandt van Rijn, whom Jacqueline Roque credited as being a key influence on Picasso’s art of this period. It was through these reinterpretations and investigations of the Old Masters that Picasso reaffirmed his connection to some of the greatest painters in the history of art. Here was a character that embodied the courtly mannerisms of the Renaissance gentleman, and Picasso resurrected him for a twentieth century audience.