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- Painting
Garçon à la pipe (Boy with a Pipe)
Artist: Pablo Picasso
Year: 1905
Type: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 100 cm × 81.3 cm (39.4 in × 32.0 in)
Garçon à la Pipe is a painting by Pablo
Picasso. It was painted in 1905 when Picasso was 24 years old, during his
Rose Period, soon after he settled in the Montmartre section of Paris,
France. The oil on canvas painting depicts a Parisian boy holding a pipe in
his left hand and wearing a garland or wreath of flowers.
Early preparations of this work involved positioning the boy in all types of
poses that involved standing, sitting or leaning against the wall. After
much repositioning of the model, Picasso decided to go with the boy sitting
down. Next was how to position the arm, where much time was also spent on
the height and angle. Early works do not show any objects other than a pipe
being used.
Although Picasso started to paint this picture, he gave it a rest period for
about a month. During this time, Picasso decided to finish it off by placing
a garland of flowers on the boy's head. It is not known why Picasso decided
to do this, but there is a contrast between femininity and masculinity in
the picture.
Le Bateau-Lavoir in Montmartre is where Picasso was living when he painted
the picture. Some of the local people made a living in the entertainment
industry, such as being clowns or acrobats. Picasso used many local people
in his pictures, but little is known about the boy in the picture.
The painting was first bought by John Hay Whitney in 1950 for US$30,000.On
May 5, 2004 the painting was sold for US$104,168,000 at Sotheby's auction in
New York City. Sotheby’s did not say who bought the painting. However,
sources say that it was Guido Barilla, owner of the Barilla Group who bought
the painting. At the time, it broke the record for the amount paid for an
auctioned painting (when inflation is ignored). The amount, US$104 million,
includes the auction price of US$93 million plus the auction house’s
commission of about US$11 million. The painting was given a pre-sale
estimate of US$70 million by the auction house.
Many art critics have stated that the painting's high sale price has much
more to do with the artist's name than with the merit or historical
importance of the painting. The Washington Post's article on the sale
contained the following characterisation of the reaction:
“Picasso expert Pepe Karmel, reached in New York the morning after the sale,
was waxing wroth about the whole affair. "I'm stunned," he said, "that a
pleasant, minor painting could command a price appropriate to a real
masterwork by Picasso. This just shows how much the marketplace is divorced
from the true values of art." ”
- Painter
Pablo Picasso
 Pablo
Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano
de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso, known as Pablo Picasso, ( 25
October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker,
ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential
artists of the 20th century. He is widely known for co-founding the Cubist
movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of
collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and
explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles
d'Avignon (1907), and Guernica (1937), a portrayal of the German bombing of
Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.
Picasso is commonly regarded, along with Henri Matisse and Marcel Duchamp,
as one of the three artists who most defined the revolutionary developments
in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century, responsible
for significant developments in painting, sculpture, printmaking and
ceramics.
Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years,
painting in a realistic manner through his childhood and adolescence; during
the first decade of the 20th century his style changed as he experimented
with different theories, techniques, and ideas. His revolutionary artistic
accomplishments brought him universal renown and immense fortune, making him
one of the best-known figures in 20th century art.
Source: The National Gallery,
London
Courtesy:
Tanya Ahmad |
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Tanya Ahmad