Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Portrait de Françoise Gilot

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
Portrait de Françoise Gilot
dated '26.12.48' (on the reverse) and dated again '2.5.47.' (on the stretcher)
oil on canvas
25 5/8 x 18 1/8 in. (65 x 45.9 cm.)
Painted 2 May 1947—26 December 1948

Pre-Lot Text
Picasso et Ses Muses: The Sam Rose and Julie Walters Collection
One element above all influenced Picasso’s art: the woman in his life. And across the second half of his career four women, each reflecting Picasso in their gaze, inspired his genius in epochal ways.
The Washington real-estate developer Same Rose and his wife Julie Walters spent years acquiring the four portraits to be offered in this auction, and what these powerful depictions of women reveal is that Picasso had a far more complex relationship with the muses in his life than first thought.
The youthful Marie-Thérèse Walter, whom Picasso famously encountered on a Paris street in 1927, stimulated a highly-charged lyricism and driving colorism. Dora Maar, who entered Picasso’s life in the late 1930s, brought her steely intellect to bear in a series of profound and anguished portraits. Then, from 1943, Francoise Gilot became the central subject of Picasso’s art, introducing an irrepressible sense of rebirth. And finally, Jacqueline Roque, the guardian angel of his final years, in whose striking features Picasso saw an echo of the Antique.