Magnet / Picasso / Portrait de Marie-Thérèse / 54 x 79 mm

This cheerful work came at the start of an astonishingly productive year, during which Picasso produced many powerful works, including Guernica (1937). The influence of his young love and muse had resurrected him and he became a legend in his lifetime. There is something of a harlequinade in this painting, as the bold, bright bands of color are arranged in a way that makes the dress look like a costume. The figure could also resemble a court card from a deck of cards, where stripes and ribbons are often creatively swapped on the same plane. Here the bands of color are superbly controlled by the black or white stripes to create a wonderful array of energetic patterns across the contours of the body.

Picasso revisits his technique of red and green polarization to add another dimension to the animation. This color combination typically results in a flat pictorial surface, but he softens it beautifully by creating a cubist sense of spatial depth. This is created by the illusion of the two corners in the space closely adjoining the figure. As a result, Marie-Therese's mighty body emerges sharply from the picture.

Magnet based on the painting "Portrait of Marie-Thérèse, January 6, 1937" (oil on canvas, 100 x 81 cm. Dation, 1979, MP159.
Picasso Succession 2013)