1. Introduction
While the Battle of Paris was raging on August 23, 1944 Picasso made the ink drawing Bacchanale: Le triomphe de Pan, after Poussin’s Bacchanale, thus memorializing the Libération of the city. Despite its sketchiness, it stayed remarkably true to the original painting, keeping all of the figures and the arrangement, along with the foreground motifs of the wine jar, tambourine, thyrsus, masks, pipes, and Pan’s rod, as well as the flower baskets. However, even in its first draft, the artist already made some significant changes. For example, in the male figure to the right of center, who is helping to pick up a drunken satyr, he preserved the front diagonal stance, except for the buttocks, which are now seen from the opposite direction. He also expanded the exposed breasts of the woman carrying a tambourine in the right background, the only one in the painting with bare breasts. And he modified the location of the arm of the satyr in the center whose hair is being pulled by a female to expose the other woman’s breasts. So it was not only a feeling of liberation that became predominant, but a sense of recovered youth.
As General Leclerc’s French Armored Division entered the outskirts of Paris from the south and southwest (Drake, 2015: p. 403). Picasso started the gouache version of Bacchanale: Le triomphe de Pan, which he would complete by August 29. The satyr had now become a bearded man wearing a sort of French Revolutionary Phrygian bonnet so that he is made to stand for Dionysian revolutionary energy, a loud and wild release of human libido in the moment of national redemption (Cox, 2010: p. 110). Here a nymph, the female figure that goes with the bearded faun, is portrayed as having two conjoined breasts, a pointed profile, a wrinkled neck, and enormous buttocks. The numerous creatures’ entwined bodies give way to massive feet, gigantic swelling breasts, and hands that resemble flails. An odd anthropomorphic tornado appears to flow through the image, with human limbs turning into leaves or trees writhing like bodies arched with passionate longing (Vallentin, 1963: p. 223). This enlargement of limbs is characteristic of Picasso’s artistic manipulations. Stretched and twisted in rubbery configurations they now stand for emblems of excitement and freedom. The spirit of ritualistic abandon in this Arcadian setting was in keeping with his heightened mood. Retaining the essentials of the composition and the movement of the ring of dancers, he gave the color a gaiety which makes Poussin’s revelers look demure (Penrose, 1981: p. 350).
To the English poet John Pudney he would say: “Art which is more disciplined, liberty which is less uncontrolled: that is the artist’s defense and shield in times like these. This is probably the moment for poets to write sonnets.” Pierre Daix contends that what Picasso intended when he “transformed” the Poussin painting into his own expression of release was “the means of liberating all those reclining nude women, those clothed seated women... from the cramped rooms where he had confined them all those years” (Daix, 1965: p. 278). As an artist committed to representation in an age of abstraction, Picasso now appeared to be out of step with the avant-garde for which he had previously set the agenda. What greater evidence could there be of his “retreat” than his painting himself into the history of art? His relationship with the masters became more crucial as he distanced himself from the creative environment that had fostered him in the early decades. But through the recycling of other artists’ creations, Picasso also avoided one of his biggest fears—that of repeating himself, which he saw as a kind of artistic death. Variation now served as a tool for both reevaluating his accomplishment and expanding the boundaries of his craft. His objective was to investigate the extent to which a new product might depart from the source both conceptually and formally while maintaining evidence of it. Additionally, variation served as a way to directly address the relationship between originality and imitation and to highlight the crucial aspect of all creative endeavors, where each new piece builds upon the accomplishments of its predecessors (Galassi, 2009: pp. 109-117).
A photograph taken on Libération day (August 25) shows him with Maya on the balcony of Marie-Thérèse’s apartment. Paper garlands are hanging over the balustrade, in celebration (Utley, 2000: p. 35). The remainder of Leclerc’s tank division moved on to Paris, entering the southern part through the Porte d’Orléans and advancing towards the center. Tanks under the command of Colonel Langlade took over the MBF headquarters in the Hôtel Majestic. Those led by Colonel Pierre Billote closed in on the German commander General Dietrich von Choltitz’s headquarters in the Hôtel Meurice on rue Rivoli, where he signed his surrender (Riding, 2010: pp. 312-313). Later that afternoon de Gaulle arrived in Paris and made contact with Leclerc, demanding the presence of the 2nd Armored Division to accompany him on a planned massive parade down the Champs Elysées, “as much for prestige as for security” (Drake, 2015: p. 407).
In the weeks following the Liberation, Picasso would come to be regarded as a Resistance hero. Hailed as an icon of the survival of creativity, his work came to be viewed as the expression of free will and perseverance against oppression. Allied soldiers, collectors and art lovers alike flooded his studio, each eager to meet and pay their respects to the great Spanish artist. Ernest Hemingway had arrived in Paris with the American army and had gone to visit him at No. 7, rue des Grands-Augustins. When he found out that he was away, he simply left a case of hand grenades to be given to “the great exploder of modern painting” (Gilot & Lake, 1964: p. 61). Probably later that same day, Picasso returned to his studio (Dagen, 2009: p. 489). John Groth was one of the first Americans to see him on August 27. He watched while he made a drawing Paul Éluard had requested for an album to be presented to De Gaulle by poets, writers, and artists. When asked if he would send a message to the artists of America, Picasso replied, “Tell them to work hard—like me” (Goggin, 1985: pp. 380-381). In the ensuing period, Picasso received countless visits from foreign artists, journalists and photographers, among them Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Lee Miller (Caruncho & Fàbregas, 2017: p. 122).
That autumn, Picasso reunited with Paul Éluard, Aragon, and other friends from the Resistance (Gohr, 1988: p. 12). On September 28, Miller took a group photograph at No. 7, rue des Grands-Augustin’s which included Éluard, Penrose, Aragon, Nusch Éluard, Elsa Triolet and Picasso in the studio. According to Penrose it was at this moment that the artist informed him that he was thinking of joining the Parti communiste français (PCF) (Lecaplain, 2019: p. 211). In some of the photographs Miller took one can see Le marin (Autoportrait) proudly on display, together with some smaller, classically rendered portraits of young boys he had painted in August. She later wrote: “He showed me his portraits of imaginary FFI boys… The faces on the canvases are exactly like those of the rifle-slinging boys in the street… gentle and ferocious, poetic and buoyant, young but wary, scarcely bearded but with warm eyes” (Miller, 1944: pp. 98-149).
On October 5, there was an announcement in L’Humanité that Picasso had joined the PCF (Cabanne, 1979: p. 365), as Jacques Duclos put it, into “the fraternal family of workers, peasants, intellectuals, which is the true representative of France” (Baldassari, 2002: p. 311). It was illustrated with three photographs and a drawing of L’homme au mouton. In that same issue, Éluard wrote: “Today I have seen how Picasso and Marcel Cachin embraced. And I have noted the nobility of the intelligence and the heart upon hearing Picasso express his gratitude to the people of France, joining its greatest party, of those shot by firing squad, in a poem titled ‘Promese inouïe’” (Lecaplain, 2019: p. 211).
The Spaniard explained in a later interview with Pol Gaillard for the American Marxist magazine New Masses:
I have become a Communist because our party strives more than any other to know and to build a better world, to make men clearer thinkers, freer and happier. I have become a Communist because the Communists are the bravest in France, in the Soviet Union, as they are in my country, Spain. I have never felt freer, more complete since I joined. While I wait for the time when Spain can take me back again, the French Communist Party is a fatherland to me (Penrose, 1981: p. 353).
That sense of freedom he associated with the Communists is what also attracted him to his new companion, Françoise Gilot. They had met on May 13, 1943. Gilot came from a bourgeois family in Neuilly. Her father is an industrialist, and he wanted her to study law, but she was more interested in art, which met with his father’s disapproval. Gilot and her friend Geneviève Aliquot had set up an art studio in Fontes, in the south of France which was a free zone. They were having a joint exhibition at Madame Decre’s gallery on rue Boissy-d’Anglas.
The actor, Alain Cuny, had invited Geneviève to dinner at Le Catalan, a Left Bank restaurant frequented by artists and writers. Being rather shy and nervous, Geneviève had insisted that Françoise join them. This is where Françoise saw Picasso for the first time, sitting at the next table with a group of friends: the collector, Marie-Laure, Vicomtesse de Noailles, and Dora (Cabanne, 1979: p. 351). She became aware that he was watching their table. Before long, he approached them, bearing a bowl of cherries, entreating his friend Cuny to introduce him to his two dinner companions.
Françoise had a rebellious nature. On November 11, 1940, just prior to her 19th birthday, she had been part of a student rally gathered at the Arc De Triomphe to place flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in commemoration of the armistice of 1918 and other past French victories. Obviously this was in defiance of the German authorities then occupying Paris. She was placed under city arrest, and her name was added to a list kept by the Abwehr of French hostages, which could be imprisoned as retribution for any German soldiers killed by the French during the Occupation.
2. Françoise Gilot
On June 7, Picasso executed Portrait de femme. In this close-up picture, mixing candor and determination, Françoise appears to us as Brassaï had described her during one of his visits to the studio in 1944, full of “vitality… and tenacity in overcoming obstacles” (Brassaï, 1999: p. 134). Françoise had entered Picasso’s life in 1943, he was in his early 60s; she was 21. She would bring about a major shift in his art. A strong dynamic is produced by the frontal, vertical view in this portrait. The lovely face with silver reflections radiates the composition and the young woman’s regular features, reduced to their most basic expression, gain in clarity with its sculptured presence. Seduced by his new muse, the painter exalts her oval face’s softness, her huge eyes’ determined attitude, her all-encompassing gaze, her straight nose, and her wavy brown hair. The exhilaration that he would experience with Françoise over these years is reflected in the picture’s sensual style, as well as its rounded physiognomy. As Léal pointed out, Françoise is at the origin of a new language that Picasso devoted exclusively to her, “all in curves and circles, ... restoring the unbound fullness of the forms and underlining the characteristic features” (Régnier, 1990: p. 168).
Towards the end of October, the master-printer Fernand Mourlot, who specialized in lithography, and whom he had met through Braque, invited Picasso to make prints in his workshop on rue de Chabrol, near the Gare de l’Est (Cowling, 2016: p. 174). His first lithographies date from November 2 (Cabanne, 1979: p. 379). Mourlot would later say: “He came like he was going to battle.” Arriving unusually early, between eight thirty and nine o’clock in the studio, he set up in a corner of the studio which was soon to become his own private domain. The team beside Mourlot consisted of three printers, Gaston Tutin and Jean Celestin (‘Pere Tutin’ and ‘Tintin’) the proofers, and Henri Deschamps the chromist who was in charge of the inks. They worked with Picasso taking proofs.
He toiled tirelessly, inventing the most complex and extravagant techniques, the inherent difficulties of which were dissolved in the man’s customary brio. The workers had never seen such a display of audacity and artistic liberty. He soon discovered the intricate pleasures of creating lithographs with different materials and techniques: transfer paper, crayon, tusche, washes, scraping, and transferring images from plate to stone. He was particularly fascinated with the possibility of preserving “metamorphoses of a picture,” as he once told Zervos, by printing successive states of an image on the way to the final composition.
For one of these lithographs, it appears almost as if Picasso had been waiting for Françoise’s face, and indeed there is a special expression, a special “mood” to be detected in portraits like Tête de jeune fille (I). It is distinguished by its captivating frontality and constant flowing curves, which run rapidly and with determination. These linear sweeps seamlessly transition into distinct two-dimensional shapes before separating from them again. From the closed oval of the face to the rather linear sweeps of the hair or the symmetry of the nose, mouth, and eyes to the accentuated asymmetry of one separately “stationary” eye to the other that fits in with the “turbulent” and forward-leading lines, everything blends into everything else. These crosses do not dilute or muddy the contrasts; rather, they contribute to the picture’s vividness in their formal precision. The observer’s gaze is automatically triggered by the twisting transmission lines, and beneath the portrait’s gaze, it tracks all the deviations and transmutations the face continues to form. They do not appear to be set against one another; rather, they draw from one another the perception of the many differences (Franz, 2002: pp. 29-30).
Picasso’s hectic labor in the Mourlot workshop provided a unique challenge for the printers who worked with him: how to document the constant stream of pictures being made on stone for future generations? It was agreed that each image should be pulled at least five times, plus one for the printer. However, occasionally the artist’s impatience and creative energy caused the mechanism to malfunction, leaving insufficient time to print the appropriate number before the stone was reworked. Furthermore, there were some proofs that Picasso took home with him, which Mourlot did not remember and could not photograph or document. This is further evidence of the artist’s unwavering creative drive.
Françoise came over to the workshop on November 26 (Nash, 1998: p. 228), and found him deeply immersed in his work. In the proofs Picasso showed her, she could see she had been very much on his mind. Most of the prints, in one way or another, were portraits of her (Mahler, 2015: p. 204). The lithograph Tête de jeune fille (VI) displayed a close-up of her face in the dark. Picasso’s description of her as a young woman sleepwalking on a tightrope is more illuminating in this picture than any other, revealing a wide-eyed, nocturnal, and supernaturally aware spirit. His idea of her as a new face for his art is evident these lithographs, a role that she gladly accepted (Stuckey, 2012: p. 172).
3. The South and Matisse
In Mid-March of the following year, he went with Françoise to Golfe-Juan, staying at Louis Fort’s place (Daemgen, 2005: p. 36). While there, he made a series of abstract sketches of her. Soon after, he took her to visit Matisse in Vence (Ocaña, 2004: p. 269). She recalled:
I dressed in almond green trousers and a mauve silk top, because I knew he liked those colors. The door was opened by his secretary, Lydia Delectorskaya. I had never seen her before, but she was immediately recognizable as the woman in his paintings. She took us inside, and to my utter surprise, everything was in darkness. It was three o’clock in the afternoon. This, I was not expecting from the painter of color. After walking through several rooms in darkness, we came to a room where there was normal light, where we found Matisse sitting upright in his bed playing with a cat. Pablo introduced me as ‘a young painter’ (as our relationship was still a secret) (Gilot, 2014).
It is presumably at this first meeting that the Frenchman declared that he would want to make a portrait of her. “If I made a portrait of Françoise, I would make her hair green.” The Spaniard was shocked, “But why would you make a portrait of her?” “Because she has a head that interests me,” Matisse said, “with her eyebrows sticking up like circumflex accents.” Up to that point Picasso had painted only two small gray-and-white portraits of her, but when he got back into the car, all of a sudden, a proprietary instinct took possession of him. “Really, that’s going pretty far,” he said. “Do I make portraits of Lydia? … In any case, now I know how I should make your portrait” (Gilot & Lake, 1964: pp. 99-100).
One result of this conversation would appear to be the initial version of La femme-fleur. By choosing to paint her hair green, he appears to pay homage to Matisse in two ways. As well as reacting to the other painter’s stated interest in her features, the green here also recalled his notorious 1905 portrait of his wife, commonly known as La raie verte, in which the shading of the sitter’s face was accomplished using an unlikely and yet wholly successful green stripe. Picasso appears to have adopted his own reinvention of Matisse’s colorism, but adapted it wholly to his own pictorial needs. As he said, “Matisse isn’t the only one who can paint you with green hair” (Gilot & Lake, 1964: p. 117).
As Franz has noted, the line, which is a continuous form of seeing, becomes the primary motif in the image. It directs the viewer’s attention to a delicate balance between lines of force that rise and those that move lightly to and fro. The hair develops distinct, two-dimensional segments with varying extensions that are about oval in shape. In this manner, the two-dimensionally defined shapes generate their own impulses that connect to the sweep of the highlighted contour lines and cause the viewer’s eye to motion almost dance-like (Franz, 2002: pp. 31-32).
He had planned to paint her sitting, but slowly he started setting the parameters necessary for the alchemy: the elongation of the figure which gives the impression of a standing position while it is still a seated woman, the blossoming of the chest on either side of the central axis of the body to which corresponds the rounded deployment of the hair around a head reduced to the strict minimum (Andral, 2009: p. 12). He painted a light background color over the chair, her legs, and her bust, leaving only a thin strip of the body three-quarters of the way up its length in the shape of a stalk that bore round fruit and pods. A flattened ball resembling the heart of a sunflower or daisy, with petals and fine-veined leaves attached, sits atop this slender, shaky stalk. Despite her face’s reduced features, there is a remarkable resemblance to Françoise, especially to the wide-open eyes, the small, childlike mouth with a pouting expression, the straight nose, and the curve of the eyebrows. The delicate pastel hues used to paint the image highlight the petals’ texture (Vallentin, 1963: p. 230).
“I was simply obeying a profound image that had imposed itself on me,” he declared. as he had of Dora Maar, his former companion (Caws, 2000: pp. 116-120). The opening of the bosom on either side of the body’s central axis in Femme dans un fauteuil is matched by the circular arrangement of hair around the head, which is simplified to a tiny, empty circle. The complete anonymity of the model, devoid of her face, was undoubtedly evident whether or not one observed the phallic nature of these studies, unless describing a woman’s neck and hair was sufficient. The only way to unquestionably restore Françoise’s features was to highlight her iridescent gaze as conveyed by the asymmetric eyebrows, with the right, higher eyebrow always in the shape of a circumflex, a lush display of hair articulated in concave-convex sweeps and cascades, full breasts stylized as circles, narrow hips, and a slender shape, shooting up like the stem of a plant (Andral, 2002: p. 24).
He made several pencil drawings on the same motif after they returned to Paris in late April (Daix, 1965: p. 288). It is possible to see progression from the artist’s gradual appropriation of the model to the creation of an entirely new pictorial language in Portrait de Françoise. Light and vibrant pinks, yellows, blues, and greens now predominate, marking a shift in his palette. The exact formal constants mentioned earlier would continue to serve as signals with reference to her (Sircoulomb-Müller, 2002: p. 41). In the drawing Portrait de Françoise from April 27, however, he unexpectedly focused on a precise description of her striking looks, drawing the observer into an unbreakable conversation with his muse. Because of its adherence to naturalism, this portrait is unique, having been depicted honestly and unapologetically by the artist, who has reduced his method to frame her unwavering face with a halo of hair.
Portrait de Françoise and Portrait de femme en buste returned to the reduced striking features of his beautiful companion: a series of bold, confident lines capture the broad expanse of her face, her wide eyes and her flowing hair. He has deliberately left much of the sheet in reserve, resorting to only the most confident and efficient lines, a technique that adds to the incredible sense of luminosity of the work. A calm openness and brightness, an impression of health and well-being, have replaced the striations that delineated the former portraits of Dora. Picasso discovered a new style for his pictures of Françoise, one that was marked by a certain elegance and poise, having also abandoned the naive, dreamlike images he had used for Marie-Thérèse Walter. As Frank Elgar pointed out: “The portraits of Françoise Gilot have a Madonna-like appearance, in contrast to the tormented figures he was painting a few years earlier” (Elgar & Maillard, 1972: p. 123).
On May 5, he revised the painting La femme-fleur. According to Francoise herself, after painting a piece of paper sky-blue, he started cutting out oval shapes that, in different degrees, matched his picture of her head: two that were absolutely round at first, followed by three or four more depending on his plan to do it in width. Once he was done cutting them out, he drew tiny symbols for the mouth, nose, and eyes on each one. Then, as he saw fit, he pinned them one by one onto the canvas, shifting each one slightly to the left or right, up or down. Until he got to the final one, none of them seemed particularly fitting. He knew where he wanted it after trying all the others in different places, and when he applied it to the canvas, the form appeared to be just where it was supposed to be. It was entirely convincing. He stuck it on the wet canvas, and said, “Now it’s your portrait.” He softly drew the shape in charcoal, removed the paper, and then carefully and methodically painted in the exact outline that was drawn there. He didn’t touch the head again after that was done. From there, he felt that the torso itself could still be smaller. Driven by the moment, he covered the original torso with a second one that was slender and stemlike, giving the impression that this woman was far smaller than the others (Gilot & Lake, 1964: pp. 117-118).
As McCully has pointed out, this painting marks a decisive turning point in Picasso’s work: it would lead him to completely reconsider his vision of the human body and condition the portraits of Françoise that he would produce in the following months, whether in painting, engraving, drawing or even later, in ceramics and sculpture. Her body and bust, thin as a stem, are planted in a strip of reddish earth at the bottom of the canvas; her arms have a real gesture, and her imposing round chest suggests seeds and bulbs ready to germinate. The silhouette is surrounded by a surface that has not been uniformly painted and masks the previous version of the subject represented. This pictorial process mainly serves to emphasize the verticality as well as the surface of the canvas and underlies the idea that Picasso drew the iconic representation of his lover with his own brush (McCully 2009: p. 31). It was then that Picasso came up with this simple, unadorned style, which features the purest lines and fundamental geometric shapes. Drawings of her like Portrait de Françoise delight in her even features, the soft oval of her face and the determination of her gaze. Drawing inspiration from her flowing hair and alluring appearance, he once again identified her as a flower. Over the course of the following year, he expanded on this idea in several paintings and drawings that featured a similarly formed figure—a huge, round breast composed of arabesques and sweeping curves—and a slender stem of a torso. The composition is given structure by this network of distinct curves, which also creates creative artistic rhythms over its surface (Régnier, 1990: p. 60).
4. Sharing Studio
When she finally moved in with him, Françoise never left the Rue des Grands-Augustins. She painted and watched him paint. She noticed he did not use a palette. There were three or four large cans with brushes standing in turpentine on a tiny table to his right, which was covered with newspapers. These were a jungle of colored smudges and slashes, and he wiped his brush off on them each time he changed it. He squeezed pure color from a tube onto the newspaper as needed. Occasionally he mixed tiny amounts of color on the page itself. Cans of varying sizes, containing grays, neutral tones, and other colors he had previously mixed, were placed at his feet and around the base of the easel. He spent three or four hours at a time standing in front of the canvas. He hardly made any unnecessary movements. She asked him if standing in one place for extended periods of time did not wear him out. He shook his head. “No, that’s why painters live so long. While I work, I leave my body outside the door, the way Moslems take off their shoes before entering the mosque” (Gilot & Lake, 1964: pp. 115-116).
By choosing to live together, they had implicitly sealed their fate with an artistic pact: for both of them, creation was paramount, pursued independently and without interference, yet side by side. Her own drawings served as her logbook. Upon reviewing them today, we can discern the uncompromising diagnosis of a couple struggling to find harmony. While Picasso was unable to escape the curved line to depict the young woman, Françoise, on her part, hardened her lines to mirror those of her partner. Picasso’s head appears chiseled from granite, as the lines emphasize the hardness and the fixity of his hypnotic gaze. This year, right after he had convinced her to live with him, she created a series of sketches depicting Adam forcing Eve to eat an apple—an overtly transparent symbolism that reveals the bitterness of a young woman determined to resist being subjected to a yoke (Maïllis, 2012: pp. 47-48). Gilot’s style is characterized by firm contours, balanced compositions, and legibility. Distortion is restrained and purposeful; space is ordered; figures feel anchored. Even tension is conveyed through poise, not rupture. If Picasso’s figures had previously often reflected domination, fear, and aggression, under her influence they appear more self-contained. Women appear thoughtful, grounded, sometimes symbolic but rarely dehumanized. Power is internal rather than imposed.
The pencil drawing from June 9, Femme nue debout les bras sur la tête, uses again a vocabulary that is especially devoted to Françoise, full of curves and circles, that illustrates her distinctive features—slim waist, round breasts, and most importantly, a serious and passionate gaze—and replicates for us the fullness of forms. “Her physiognomy served in some ways as a sort of springboard for virtuoso variations which, examined in their progression, take on a range of values in the articulation and disarticulation of the body pushed to the ultimate point of distortion” (Régnier, 1990: p. 168).
By mid-June, Picasso was back at Mourlot’s studio, where he executed ten portraits of her (Stuckey, 2012: p. 179). All of them were created on lithographic paper and were then transferred to the stone. In this process the same stone was used and was ground off anew for each lithograph. Françoise recalled how his face was strained and enthralled as he stood two to three meters away from her. He kept staring at her the entire time. He didn’t even hold a pencil yet, and he didn’t even touch his sketchbook. Finally, he said: “Now I see what I have to do.” The next day he began drawing her in that same pose from memory (Gilot & Lake, 1964: pp. 115-116).
Picasso employed lithography as a unique and independent artistic technique, always experimenting and pushing the medium to its extremes. He used a wide range of approaches to portray his youthful companion in this amazing series of pictures. The hair’s wavy brushstrokes fitting the defined facial area occasionally resulted once again in a floral representation of her. But, as Spies has written, Picasso was evidently not concerned with arriving at clear solutions, with producing a definitive masterpiece he seemed to be preparing in his numerous studies. It became clear how important his serial strategy was. He approached an unknown result due to his fixation with form: the subject matter simply dipped below the threshold of perception. The variations seemed to be the product of meticulous computation, which led to the thematic element being less significant. The aspect of repetition was a contributing factor in all of the reasons for the subject’s demise. He used tiny, formal variations between drawings. “Picasso’s various solutions are so closely similar that the differences between them are barely detectable ... The artist aimed ... at an exhaustive presentation of the virtual stages of a design ... The idea of a definitive, ‘correct’—and therefore applicable—solution falls by the wayside” (Spies, 2006: pp. 148-151).
On June 15, he started Tête de femme aux boucles vertes. As we have seen, in the pictures Picasso created of Françoise during this period, he began with simple, open calligraphic images of his partner. his use of powerful, black brushstrokes to outline her face is cloisonniste, but it adheres to the style of his work on paper. As a Picassoesque response to Matisse’s own colorism, he infused the face and hair with vibrant curls of color. The painting’s precise composition makes this colorism even more powerful. Picasso rarely used tiny scale canvases like this one for his paintings. It demonstrates how he obviously relished the expressive opportunities that such a format provided, bringing his colors to the forefront with an uncommon and focused intensity that left no room for ambiguity. His depictions of her rarely avoid her powerful physiognomy. His extensive knowledge of her features has advanced to the point where the lines are now as thick as the areas of color.
In the oil Tête de femme from mid-July, the figure strikes another nearly formal attitude, staring directly at the observer. Picasso renders her face features with a virtuoso interplay of grays, whites, and yellows, while surrounding his figure with a concise pallet of primary colors. Her striking eyes serve as the composition’s main focus and compel the viewer to participate in an inevitable conversation. The painter captures in it the youthful vitality of his unique muse and the renewed sense of optimism. As Müller has noted for Picasso, “stylistic forms and modes of expression can be adapted and transmuted unproblematically from one artistic medium to another ... The integration of this graphic shorthand into paintings seems to conform fully to his artistically ideal of a sort of peinture éscrite” (Müller, 2002: p. 11). Daix reminds us of Rimbaud’s moto: “We shall wrench painting from its old habits of copying and endow it with sovereignty ... We shall communicate feelings through line and color and design extracted from the outside world, simplified and mastered” (Daix, 1965: p. 192). Picasso restored, recreated, and re-inscribed Françoise, who he saw as the sun, the flower, and a fertility goddess. The pagan world that she would rule as queen was sparked by her presence. She evoked in his mind and memory ancient pastorals, fauns, and sun myths.
The oil Buste de Françoise from June 17 confirms this view. The intense, rich colors and the sensuous flowing curves with which Picasso so caressingly depicted her body and face coexist with her sensual, poetic expression. The lines that defined his lover’s body were traced with a feeling of visual poetry which recalls the young Marie-Thérèse’s antecedent. The striking color scheme and looping shapes evoke, for example, his famous picture of her from a little more than ten years earlier, Femme dans un fauteuil (Le rêve). His employment of outlines, which resemble stained glass, to bring the color fields into sharper relief heightens this impact. However, Picasso’s attention on Françoise’s direct look, as depicted by the blue and red dots of her pupils, gives her a strong liveliness that contrasts with the former lover’s frequent depictions of her dozing off. Despite being painted more than a month after La femme-fleur, her alter ego’s traces are evident. He has again depicted her with green hair that evokes vegetation; in fact, the other hues also remind us of flowers. Thus, he has again returned to the idea of her body as a stem while simultaneously emphasizing his personal admiration for her curvy physique and highlighting her large breasts with an overly slim waist. Picasso has also paid close attention to Françoise’s real facial features, just like in those earlier images. They show an almost regimented system of representation, even if they are shown here as being more angular than before. The eyes, nose, mouth, and chin have turned into ciphers on her face, evoking the “Eye of Horus” amulets and ancient Egyptian art, a symbol of wellbeing.
Drawings like Faune en maillot violet reflect the classical Mediterranean tradition with a new vision, both childlike and complex. The colors are tender; blues, pinks, ochres and greens dominate, and their dancing, flute-playing mood gives the great panels an echo of a golden age (Penrose, 1981: pp. 359-360). Müller writes: “Antiquity, which is here filtered through the stylistic lens of pictorial pattern, became the pre-eminent treasure trove of themes and motifs for Picasso’s art” (Müller, 2002: p. 7). By now officially living with Françoise, he flourished in his regained joie de vivre. This period became synonymous with effervescent creativity and the artist energetically continued to explore new techniques. An insistence on purity and a lightness of touch, which are particularly evident here, are characteristics of his Antibes output from a stylistic perspective. Picasso creates a dramatic contrast between the angularity of the lower body, the roundness of the breasts, and the faces—which are occasionally reduced to a mere triangle—by combining curves and straight lines in his geometrical treatment of the figure. As Christine Piot noted regarding the drawings from this period, we can observe a “long evolution from the image to the symbol, from initial naturalism to near-abstraction whereby his graphism recalls the rhythm of prehistoric figures” (Léal et al., 2000: pp. 361-363).
With works like Femme nue debout III, he used “the geometry—circles, rhombs, triangles, etc.,—ideograms—arrows—and notation symbols—sharps—reinvent the vocabulary of forms and the language of the body” (Andral, 2002: p. 25). “Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don’t start measuring her limbs”, Picasso had said (Zervos, 1935: pp. 173-178). Her figure is depicted in its most basic form with simple, angular lines and shapes. However, this simple portrayal of Françoise demonstrates an ongoing fascination and interaction with art’s historical allusions. The nude standing in contrapposto with her arms raised over her head is evocative of neoclassical and Renaissance representations of the Roman goddess Venus. The 1848 painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Venus Anadyomene bears a striking similarity to this work; the pose; her nudity; the blue horizon line of the sea; even the position of her breasts, with one facing the viewer and one in profile. Long recognized as a symbol of sex and fertility, a downward-facing triangle echoes the shape of a woman’s sex. In order to frame her face and guide the viewer’s eye down the length of her torso, the design repeats this triangular shape in the triangle formed by her arms. The work’s uniqueness is preserved by the trademark exaggeration of body parts and use of asymmetry. Gilot quotes Picasso as having said: “Of course the breasts are not symmetrical; nothing ever is. Every woman has two arms, two legs, two breasts, which may in real life be more or less symmetrical, but in painting they shouldn’t be shown to have any similarity” (Gilot & Lake, 1964: p. 118).
Working across paintings, drawings, pastels and lithographs, Picasso employed bright, confident line and color areas to evoke a strikingly statuesque image of his young lover early in their relationship. Gilot recalled him saying: “I almost never work from a model, but since you’re here, maybe I ought to try.” She mentioned in her memoirs that he grabbed a big sketchbook and drew her head three times. When he was done, he scowled after reviewing the result. “No good,” he said. “It just doesn’t work.” He ripped up the sketches. The next day he said, “You’d be better posing for me nude.” He made her stand back to the door, extremely straight, with her arms by her sides, after she had undressed. He appeared distant and tense as he stood three or four steps away from her. For what seemed like a very long time, he never took his eyes off of her. Finally, he said, “I see what I need to do. You can dress now. You won’t have to pose again” (Gilot & Lake, 1964: pp. 109-110).
Picasso would later conjure up images of Gilot from memory after capturing her soul in his mind’s eye. Encased in a complete halo of copious hair, her open face in Portrait de femme is rendered with strong strokes of vivid primary color. The line’s personality is reminiscent of Matisse’s aggressive, linear portraits from the same era, which are triggered by color and make use of the underlying sheet of paper in a very active way. Her dewy complexion is reflected by the warm cream tones of the paper, which are spatially enlivened by the color traces. His idea of her as young yet stern, statuesque and collected individual is reflected in the concise and self-assured line. The directness of her forward-facing stance is reminiscent of ancient idols. Here, her radiant eyes shine with a goddess-like strength, giving the impression that she is immortal.
The pencil drawing Tête de femme shows an ornamental background, which smacks of the Oriental drapes made so famous in Matisse’s works and appears as a tribute to the other artist. Both he and Picasso were in the spotlight together in the early aftermath of the war, when they were hailed by the French as the greatest living artists. The two started to see each other more often, both within and outside of official events and collaborative exhibitions. Despite Picasso’s own restraint in keeping the piece remarkably simple, this image of her, with the spirals of her hair, is full of movement and structure. In fact, the background is only slightly cluttered by the embellishment behind Françoise, giving her face’s unspoiled roundness and the large, star-struck eyes in the center a powerful sense of devotion. Since she was a huge fan of Matisse herself, it is a testament to her that she is shown here in a picture that has more of the exoticism associated with his work than Picasso’s.
5. Back to the Mediterranean
In late July, Picasso and Françoise went to Cap d’Antibes, where they stayed with Paul and Marie Cuttoli at their villa Shady Rock (Richardson, 2010: p. 350). It was there that he probably executed Le faune au soleil. It is a part of a series of sketches and paintings that depict Bacchanalian characters. A portrait of Françoise as a flower frequently serves as the focal point of these scenes of exuberant celebration, which in their liveliness evoke the carefree days of summer. In these works, the artist portrayed himself as three distinct personas—a centaur, Pan, and a faun—all of which are clearly meant to reflect aspects of his own personality as it relates to the subject of his just discovered youthfulness.
Around this time, he made the watercolors Le flûtiste and Jeune faune jouant de la diaule. Figures and objects reluctantly confront one another. Sight is dominated by a conventional linearity that divides and defines items. While painting by the Mediterranean, Picasso revisited the Arcadian motifs. Arcadian myths originate in the classical idea of Arcadia—a pastoral paradise associated with simplicity, harmony with nature, and an idealized rural life. In ancient Greek and Roman literature (Theocritus, Virgil), Arcadia symbolized an escape from political strife and urban corruption into a timeless, innocent landscape. Picasso populated his art with fauns, satyrs, and centaurs in idyllic settings, symbolizing a return to nature, fertility, and simpler joys, often drawing inspiration from themes of transformation, lust, and innocence found in Ovid. He used these creatures to explore his own identity, linking them to his creativity and a desire for an idyllic, pre-war world.
The flute player reappeared in the watercolor Danseurs sur la plage from that August. The two animals—lamb and goat—had once again led Picasso to the image of the faun, the role of the flute-player being taken by a centaur. These two characters—faun and centaur—enter a confrontation in Le combat des centaures only to be resolved with the elimination of one of them in Mort de centaure. Interestingly both the initiation of the conflict and its resolution involve the intervention of a female.
With the cancellation of the brutal force of the centaur, harmony can be restored as observed in Faunes et femme nue, where two fauns dance with a woman as an intermediary bearer of peace. The mythological character of the faun was first depicted on Greek vases in the sixth century BC. A mythical creature with a half-goat, half-human physique, it had served as an inspiration to poets and artists due to its bawdy nature. He had made appearances in bacchanals, voyeuristic situations, and in conjunction with nymphs over the ages. In the 1940s, the faun would take on a variety of roles, either alone or in upbeat musical pieces. It was among the post-war revival emblems in the artist’s iconography. The artist was particularly intrigued by the faun’s personality since it had the fundamental traits of a man with enough goat-like bodily “additions” to imply its bestial tendencies. Since the faun faces us directly and asks us to evaluate its disheveled hair and twirling eyes, his presence grabs our attention right away. The collage aspect of some of these works provide them with depth and vitality. With all of its vigor, his faun captures Picasso’s current state as he was bursting with creative passion.
After work, Picasso had gotten in the habit of having lunch at Chez Marcel by the harbor (Andral, 2009: p. 200). One day, he met the photographer Michel Sima, who was residing in Cannes at the home of the curator of the Musée d’Antibes (in the Château Grimaldi), Romuald Dor de la Souchère. Sima would later suggest that he get hold of Picasso and ask him for something for his museum (Daemgen, 2005: p. 36). On August 8, the curator did precisely that when he met him at the beach (Vallentin, 1963: p. 231). Picasso answered: “Certainly, I will go and look for a drawing of Antibes” (Andral et al., 2006: p. 41). Probably in response he offered him space in the museum to use as a studio if he wanted. The artist commented: “I have always wanted to paint large surfaces; no-one has ever given me any.” Dor de la Souchère responded: “Surfaces! You want surfaces? I can give you some ... at the château” (O’Brian, 1994: p. 385). The following day, he went with him to see the place. He agreed to work there, and would start in October (Ocaña, 2004: p. 270). Laboring intensively for two months, he would complete twenty-two panels on plywood and wallboard on classical and Mediterranean themes (Baldassari, 2002: p. 385). These would become known as the Antipolis series, after the ancient Greek name for Antibes, and feature once again Arcadian motifs. Picasso’s enthusiasm and love for Françoise would be embodied in this mythological world and its inhabitants (fauns, satyrs, and centaurs). His art during this era would blend a fresh, innocent, and nuanced perspective with the ancient Mediterranean heritage. He had started incorporating legendary animals into his classic landscapes ten years prior. He had specifically investigated the concept of the Minotaur, a colorful creature that has long been regarded as the artist’s alter ego and features an animal’s head on top of a man’s torso. The bearded figure’s obsidian eyes are just one example of how this identification could be extended to the faun. However, the faun that emerged as a free, a joyful creature, lacked the tragic undertone that was frequently present in the Minotaur’s portrayal.
He once remarked, “It’s strange; in Paris I never draw fauns ...; it’s as if they live only here” (Sassi, 2015). It was as if the region of Antibes, steeped in ancient history, prompted them. In the etching Les pipeaux (VI) from late August, he placed the fauns around the central female figure, who is carrying a tambourine in her uplifted hands. One is standing ebulliently on his head while the other is playing dancing music on a double flute. The woman is described with luscious curves. Her robe’s crimped hems draw attention to the dance moves’ cadence. The faun figures’ jagged, fractured geometric lines contrast with the central female’s soft-feminine, organic forms (Müller, 2002: p. 8). She is a clear reference to Françoise.
The watercolor Combat de faune et de centaure from August 21 takes the appearance of a stripped-down figurative drawing. Picasso created the centaur and faun figures by dissociating several aspects and then combining them. The straightforward line design is punctuated with geometric colored shapes. Finally, a green fish silhouette unites the man with the centaur’s rump by slipping between its broken limbs. The characters’ frieze arrangement lends a sense of peace to the scene. With the mythical allusions and this idea of Arcadian calm he managed to totally escape the stress of a still healing Paris and relocate to the idyllic rural paradise of classical Greece, which is the complete opposite of the turbulent city.
However, another drawing from the following day, Combat de faune et de centaure IV, shows these two hybrid, half-human figures in near stand-off, one about to fire an arrow, the other rising up on its haunch on the verge of throwing a spear. Picasso’s use of the two characters’ opposing hues heightens the drama and gives the piece a dynamic quality that is further enhanced by the sharpness of the lines used to depict the situation. Around this time, Françoise found out she was expecting a child (Utley, 2000: p. 85), so it could be that the story, which started with the centaur and faun fighting, was partly about the possibility of an offspring. Indeed, the masculine characters in his paintings from this era frequently serve as stand-ins for the artist himself, acting as avatars that allowed him to visually explore his emotions and experiences. In these images, the centaur was ultimately killed while being watched over by a remorseful faun. Shortly after, a woman, a symbol of reconciliation, appeared between two jubilant fauns, which would later serve as the focal point of his enormous painting for the museum, La joie de vivre (Pastorale) (Antipolis). We find Françoise at the center of the composition as a dancing nymph, holding above her head the tambourine that she is tinkling to the rhythm of the melody played on the diaule by the faun on her left, while another faun, strangely, seems to be dancing on his hands, his head down and his body sometimes reduced to an interlacing of geometric lines outlining precisely only his face, horns and tail.
The drawing Faunes et femme of August 28 exemplifies once again the burst of Arcadian splendor which erupted during this intense period of activity, giving birth to numerous studies of fauns, centaurs and satyrs, imaginings of love idylls and profound evocations of ancient Greek mythology. Picasso himself remarked that, “Every time I arrive at Antibes, it bites and bites me again, like lice! Why? In Antibes, I am captivated by antiquity” (Andral, 2009: p. 13). Here, a female character in the composition’s center engages in the bacchic revelry, as stylized fauns play the panpipe and dance comically. His personal approach is a wonderful fit for this theme because of the angular line’s captivatingly whimsical nature and the vivid interlocking blocks of blue and yellow that suggest the natural light of the Mediterranean. The drawing marks a golden age in Picasso’s life and speaks of joy and freedom.
Another drawing, Femme dansant et jaunt du tambourin, shows Françoise dancing and playing the tambourine while encased in a gracefully flowing, curved leaf shape. The rounded forms of her breasts and hair govern the looping curves of the overall form, just as he had done when he had portrayed them within the schematic design of a flower. The composition’s distinctive aspect is the rhythmic line that originates from the woman’s intricate hair and suggests the music and dancing the sitter is engrossed in. As Picasso once said, “Pictures, whether finished or not, are pages from my diary, and as such they have a meaning. The future will pick out the pages that it considers important” (Spies, 2006: pp. 142-143). The various changes he made to a picture only reveal the artist’s various, equally legitimate moods. His configurations were often cut-out. Here again he capitalized on the qualities of collage from Synthetic Cubism.
By mid-September he had started working at the Château Grimaldi (Andral, 2006: p. 25). He set himself up on the third floor, where he made arrangements to be able to paint during night hours; he and Sima went and got huge pots of boat paint, coarse brushes, and ordered three-meter-long sheets of asbestos cement” (Cabanne, 1979: p. 386). Through late November, he would continue to work there with Mediterranean and mythological’ compositions. The old fortress served as his headquarters for the following four months. He was inspired by the ambiance created by the pink tiled flooring, lofty ceilings, and sunlight reflected from the sea that pierced the closed shutters. The paintings he created captured a sense of Arcadian joie de vivre more than any other time in his life. Around him, he discovered reminders of the ancient world in both the people and the surroundings. His companions, the fisherman, and other locals he encountered in the market, the harbor, and the cafes were all part of the legendary population of nymphs, fauns, and centaurs. The same people who had lived among the same pine trees, rocks, and dwelling places when the same winds filled the Argo’s sails were now walking on two legs rather than four, and the nymphs and satyrs were appropriately attired (Penrose, 1981: p. 359).
The studies of fauns and Classical figures culminated in the important triptych in Ripoli on fibrocement La joie de vivre (Pastorale) (Antipolis) (completed in November), which reflected his happiness with Françoise and for which he borrowed the title from Matisse. As Franz notes that the painting lives on the one hand from the dance-like freedom of the lines which, bodiless and weightless, guide the eye across the surface, and on the other from the expansion of the surfaces, which are in part enclosed by lines and in part placed next to the lines and which finally spread themselves over and beyond them as bodiless color surfaces” (Franz, 2002: pp. 32-33). The sole human figure to enter this atavistic world of historical escape is Françoise, who is again identifiable by her large breasts and flowing hair. She makes a prominent appearance as a naked dancing girl holding a tambourine. Her back curvature is visible in the same plane as her legs move in a wild dance. Pan’s flute has been borrowed by a centaur with large hooves. Two children are bucking as if they are extremely happy. One of them is initially a she-goat, but in the finished image, it has been given a human head that resembles a disk, while its companion has a smile that resembles a crescent (Vallentin, 1963: p. 232).
In addition to the formal language of the painting, classical elements are added in the compositions of pyramidal figures, the frieze-like arrangement, and the emphasis on line over color. Even the portrayal of euphoric movement and dance cannot break the classical stasis that pervades the setting. Those Dionysian sceneries lose some of their natural eroticism because the flowing, undulating lines create a decorative effect rather than the appearance of movement. However, as Utley reminds us, according to Nietzsche, “the Apollonian striving for beauty and reason in Greek art and tragedy was but a veil thrown over the wild and reckless frenzy and devastation of Dionysian energies ... The myth of the return to the original purity of the so-called primitive is paradoxically an integral part of classical revivals” (Utley, 2000: pp. 86-87). With the return to the original Mediterranean style, to ancient rustic themes—often inspired by Hellenic myths—Picasso had managed to replace the somber atmosphere of the Occupation, thanks in part to the presence of a beloved woman. The art critic René Rennes remarked: “In Antibes, Picasso closed the infernal cycle of Guernica (Maïllis, 2012: pp. 54-57). The luminous skies of the Mediterranean replaced the dark atmosphere of the Occupation. The centaurs play the double flute, and an inspiring muse—a sort of goddess of joy—dances alongside children. The message he conveys from Antibes is one of liberation and hope.
6. Conclusion
Picasso’s idea of a Mediterranean liberation is less a single artwork than a sustained artistic and personal turning point that unfolded during the 1940s, closely tied to his relationship with Françoise Gilot. After World War II, Picasso increasingly turned toward the Mediterranean world—its light, myth, sensuality, and classical forms—as a source of renewal. This shift marked a release from the psychological darkness of wartime Paris and the anguish embodied in many of his works during the Occupation. In the South of France (Antibes, Vallauris, later the Côte d’Azur), Picasso embraced mythological figures (fauns, centaurs, nymphs, bacchantes); Classical clarity and sculptural bodies; and joy, eroticism, and vitality, often framed by the sea. Françoise Gilot, whom Picasso met in 1943, became central to this phase. Her presence coincided with—and helped catalyze—Picasso’s Mediterranean rebirth in his art from this period. Women appear less fragmented and violent, more grounded and luminous. The feminine figure often embodies balance, fertility, and strength. When Gilot left Picasso in 1953, her departure marked the end of this particular equilibrium. Picasso’s later work, while still prolific, often returned to more aggressive and haunted explorations of the female form.
Appendix
Femme dans un fauteuil (Le rêve). Boisgeloup, 24-January/1932. Oil on canvas. 130 x 98 cm. Steve Cohen Collection. OPP.32:010; Z.VII:364.
L’homme au mouton. Paris, [Early-April]/1943. Plaster. 209 x 78 x 75 cm. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid. (Inv DE01360). OPP.43:004; WS:280.I.
Le marin. Paris, 28-October/1943. Oil on canvas. 129,3 x 80,8 cm. Christie’s. #8A, 15971, 05/15/18. OPP.43:203; Z.XIII:167.
Bacchanale: Le triomphe de Pan (Étude). Paris, 23-August/1944. Ink on paper. 30,5 x 40,5 cm. Private collection. OPP.44:116; Z.XIV:34.
Bacchanale: Le triomphe de Pan. Paris, 24-28-August/1944. Watercolor & gouache on paper. 30,5 x 40,5 cm. Private collection, France. OPP.44:008; Z.XIV:35.
Portrait de femme. Paris, 7-June/1945. Gouache, ink & wash on paper. 27,5 x 22 cm. Sotheby’s. #5, PF1031, 03/24/10. OPP.45:135
Tête de jeune fille (I). Paris, 5-November/1945. Lithograph. 32,5 x 24,7 cm. Phillips. #32, NY030214, 10/28/14. OPP.45:190; M:7.01.B.
Tête de jeune fille (VI). Paris, 26-November/1945. Lithograph, shadings accentuated with lithographic crayon, on Arches. 31,7 x 26 cm. Christie’s. #9, 1322, 04/28/04. OPP.45:050; M:9.06.B,
Portrait de Françoise. Paris, 22-April/1946. Graphite on paper. 66 x 50,5 cm. Musée Picasso, Paris. Dation 1979. OPP.46:149; MPP:1343.
Portrait de Françoise. Paris, 27-April/1946. Pencil on paper. 65,4 x 50,2 cm. Sotheby’s. #368, N09416, 11/06/15. OPP.46:472.
Portrait de Françoise. Paris, 29-April/1946. Pencil on paper. 66 x 51 cm. Sotheby’s. #105, N11161, 11/14/23. OPP.46:391.
Portrait de femme en buste. Paris, 29-April/1946. Pencil on paper. 65,8 x 50,7 cm. Sotheby’s. #37, N09740, 11/14/17. OPP.46:462.
Femme dans un fauteuil. Paris, 5-May/1946. Oil on canvas. 55 x 46 cm. Private collection. OPP.46:155; Z.XIV:160.
La femme-fleur. Paris, 5-May/1946. Oil on canvas. 146 x 89 cm. Françoise Gilot Collection. OPP.46:007; Z.XIV:167.
Portrait de Françoise. Paris, 25-May/1946. Pencil on paper. 65,8 x 50,7 cm. Sotheby’s. #359, N08676, 11/03/10. OPP.46:265.
Femme nue debout les bras sur la tête. Antibes, 9-June/1946. Pencil on paper. 65,6 x 50,4 cm. Sotheby’s. #28, PF1706, 03/23/17. OPP.46:460.
Tête de femme aux boucles vertes. Paris, 15-June-7-December/1946. Oil on canvas. 35,3 x 27,3 cm. Christie’s. #32, 7021, 02/07/05. OPP.46:056; Z.XIV:194.
Tête de femme. Paris, 15-June-7-December/1946. Oil on canvas. 55 x 38 cm. Sotheby’s. #30, N08850, 05/02/12. OPP.46:161; Z.XIV:162
Buste de Françoise. Paris, 17-June/1946. Oil on plywood. 99,6 x 80,6 cm. Christie’s. #13, 7974, 06/21/11. OPP.46:164.
Faune en maillot violet. [Golfe-Juan-Antibes], [Summer]/1946. Oil on paper. 65 x 51 cm. Private collection. OPP.46:327.
Femme nue debout III. Paris, 28-June/1946. Colored crayons on paper. 50,3 x 32,8 cm. Phillips. #155, UK010623, 10/12/23. OPP.46:542.
Portrait de femme. Paris, 29-June/1946. Colored wax crayons on paper. 65,8 x 51,1 cm. Christie’s. #689, 20989, 11/19/22. OPP.46:554.
Tête de femme. Paris, 5-July/1946. Pencil on paper. 66 x 50,5 cm. Christie’s. #15, 6590, 06/25/02. OPP.46:022; Z.XIV:193.
Le faune au soleil. Antibes, [Late-July]/1946. Oil on paper laid down on canvas. 65 x 50 cm. Private collection, Switzerland. OPP.46:361; Z.XIV:240.
Le flûtiste. [Golfe-Juan], 21-July/1946. Watercolor on paper. 50,5 x 60,5 cm. Private collection. OPP.46:406.
Jeune faune jouant de la diaule. [Golfe-Juan], 21-July/1946. Pencil, gouache, brush & ink & watercolor on paper. 33 x 50,5 cm. Sotheby’s. #378, N11105, 11/15/22. OPP.46:340.
Danseurs sur la plage. Golfe-Juan, 13-August-1-September/1946. Watercolor, pencil & gouache on brown paper. 50,5 x 65 cm. Private collection, France. OPP.46:349.
Les pipeaux (VI). Golfe-Juan, Late-August-Early-September/1946. Etching, burin & cold needle. 27,3 x 35,2 cm. Marina Picasso Collection. (Inv 23193). OPP.46:072; B.I:1349; Ba:731.VI.
Combat de faune et de centaure. Golfe-Juan, 21-August/1946. India ink & watercolor on paper. 50,2 x 65,7 cm. Sotheby’s. #8, PF1916, 10/16/19. OPP.46:506; Z.XIV:207
Combat de faune et de centaure IV. Golfe-Juan, 22-August/1946. Watercolor, brush & India ink on paper. 50,4 x 65,5 cm. Christie’s. #167, 7858, 06/24/10. OPP.46:322; Z.XIV:205.
Le combat de centaures. Golfe-Juan, 25-August/1946. India ink on paper. 50 x 65 cm. Stefano Contini Collection, Venice. OPP.46:362; Z.XIV:222.
Mort de centaure. Golfe-Juan. 26-August/1946. India ink. 50,5 x 66 cm. Private collection. OPP.46:258; Z.XIV:223.
Faunes et femme nue. Golfe-Juan, 26-August/1946. India ink on paper. 50 x 65 cm. Private collection. OPP.46:383; Z.XIV:225.
Faunes et femme. Golfe-Juan, 28-August/1946. Ink on paper laid down on board. 50 x 65 cm. Sotheby’s. #464, L04010, 06/22/04. OPP.46:053; Z.XIV:232.
Femme dansant et jouant du tambourin. Golfe-Juan, 1-September/1946. Lead pencil on paper. 66 x 50,5 cm. Sotheby’s. #35, L13006, 06/19/13. OPP.46:409.
La joie de vivre (Pastorale). Antibes, October-November/1946. Oil & Ripolin on fibrocement. 120 x 250 cm. Musée Picasso, Antibes. OPP.46:001; MPA:1946.1.04; Z.XIV:289.