‘La Lecture’, a Picasso portrait of his muse Marie-Thérèse, to be auctioned in London

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), La Lecture, 1932. Est: £12-18 million / $18.6- $27.9 million

‘La Lecture’, a Picasso portrait of his muse Marie-Thérèse, to be auctioned in London Sotheby’s February 2011 sale of Impressionist and Modern Art in London is led by a major painting byPablo Picasso, depicting Marie-Thérèse Walter, the woman who transformed both his life and his art]]>

January 18th 2011, source: Sotheby’s
Picasso’s La Lecture of 1932 (estimated at £12,000,000-18,000,000 / US$18,570,000 – $27,850,000*) relatesclosely to the legendary painting Le Rêve (The Dream), painted in the same year, and ranks among thestars of the big season of sales that will take place in London from February 8th to 17th

Helena Newman, Sotheby’s Chairman, Impressionist & Modern Art, Europe, comments: “LastFebruary at Sotheby’s in London saw the record-breaking sum of £65 million paid for Giacometti’s L’Hommequi marche I. Following on from that, and from the successes in the field of Impressionist and Modern Art thatcontinued throughout the year, we are now delighted to present a sale that will appeal to the tastes of today’sever expanding global market.”

The story of Picasso’s first encounter with Marie-Thérèse, and their subsequent love affair, are amongthe most compelling in 20th-century art history. Marie-Thérèse was just 17 when Picasso firstintroduced himself to her. She was naïve and completely oblivious of the fame that alreadysurrounded the stranger who approached her as she was leaving the Paris Metro one day in 1927. “Iwas an innocent girl,” she later recalled. “I knew nothing – either of life or of Picasso… I had gone to do someshopping at the Galeries Lafayette, and Picasso saw me leaving the Metro. He simply took me by the arm andsaid: ‘I am Picasso! You and I are going to do great things together.’” The couple’s relationship was kept awell-guarded secret for many years, both on account of the fact that Picasso was then still married (toOlga Khokhlova, a Russian-Ukrainian dancer he had met on tour with Diaghilev) and because ofMarie-Thérèse’s age. Until the period in which this work was painted, Marie- Thérèse only everappeared in Picasso’s works in code, her features often embedded in the background of his paintings.But by the end of 1931, Picasso could no longer repress the creative impulse that his lover inspired,and over Christmas and New Year 1931 and ‘32, Marie- Thérèse emerged, for the first time, in fullyrecognisable, languorous, form.

It was then, in January 1932, that this picture was painted. Marie-Thérèse’s potent mix of physicalattractiveness and sexual naivety had an intoxicating effect on Picasso, and his rapturous desire forher brought about a number of images that are among the most sought after of his long career.Indeed, La Lecture is very similar, in terms of composition, to the famous Le Rêve, the history andimportance of which has been widely reported. The two works were painted just days apart, andwere soon after exhibited alongside each other in the major Picasso retrospective Exposition Picasso,held from June to October 1932 at Galerie Georges Petit in Paris, and at the Kunsthaus in Zurich.It was with the exhibition that – for the first time – Picasso’s secret came out. Olga, upon seeingPicasso’s numerous references to a specific face that was clearly not her own, was suddenly alerted tothe presence of a new woman in her husband’s life.

The painting enjoys an illustrious history, having belonged to a series of celebrated Americancollectors, including Keith Warner, David Lloyd Kreeger and James W. Alsdorf. It has not been seenin Europe since the 1932 exhibition.