Pablo Picasso

Tête d’homme belongs to the series of Musketeers that Picasso painted from 1966 to the end of his life. Highly stylised figures which Picasso depicted with a bright, vibrant palette, these seventeenth- century characters are inspired by a lifelong love of masquerade and represent a return to his childhood visions as well as to his Spanish roots. At this late period in his life the artist appears to be in dialogue with the Baroque, bravely reinterpreting it in his own breathtakingly modern pictorial language. The bold colours and assertive brushstrokes in the present work reflect the vitality and creative energy that characterise Picasso’s art in the last decade of his life.

The Musketeer character may have its origins in the previous decade in which Picasso worked compulsively from the old masters. Of particular relevance here is the series of works he painted in 1957 in response to Velázquez’s Las Meninas, which addressed a number of themes that Picasso was to interpret within his own creative universe. In his masterpiece the seventeenth century artist explores the complex relationship between the painter, his subject and the viewer. Inspired by this subject, Picasso produced a series of works on the theme of the artist and his model, and in some of them the artist is depicted wearing seventeenth century dress with the characteristic wide-brimmed hat. The Musketeer may also allude to Don Quixote, the quintessentially Spanish embodiment of the world of fantasy. The image of the Musketeer, then, contains a complex set of references to the artist, the amorous adventurer, the soldier and, in the end, Picasso himself.