Peintre travaillant, observé par un modèl nu (Painter Working, Observed by a Nude Model), plate VII from the suite Le Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu (The Unknown Masterpiece)
Pablo Picasso, Peintre travaillant, observé par un modèl nu (Painter Working, Observed by a Nude Model), plate VII from the suite Le Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu (The Unknown Masterpiece), 1927, etching on paper, The Vivian and Gordon Gilkey Graphic Arts Collection, © artist or other rights holder, 80.122.121
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- Title
Peintre travaillant, observé par un modèl nu (Painter Working, Observed by a Nude Model), plate VII from the suite Le Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu (The Unknown Masterpiece)
- Related Titles
original language: Peintre travaillant, observé par un modèl nu
series (original language): Le Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu
series (translated): The Unknown Masterpiece
translated: Painter Working, Observed by a Nude Model
- Artist
- Related People
publisher: Ambroise Vollard (French, 1866-1939)
- Date
1927
- Medium
etching on paper
- Edition
artist's proof; edition of 340
- Catalogue Raisonné
Bloch 89; Geiser/Baer 130
- Dimensions (H x W x D)
image: 7 5/8 in x 11 in; sheet: 9 13/16 in x 12 7/8 in
- Collection Area
Graphic Arts
- Category
Prints
- Object Type
intaglio print
- Culture
Spanish
- Credit Line
The Vivian and Gordon Gilkey Graphic Arts Collection
- Accession Number
80.122.121
- Copyright
© artist or other rights holder
- Terms
Publisher Ambroise Vollard commissioned Pablo Picasso to illustrate Honoré Balzac's great 1831 tale, Le Chef-d’oeuvre inconnu (The Unknown Masterpiece). The story centers on a painter who goes mad in the failed pursuit of his art. Picasso was irresistibly drawn to Balzac's story, which has been called "a fable of modern art." Moreover, it was among the first nineteenth-century texts to explore the power dynamic in the relationship between male artists and nude female models. Although the story is set in seventeenth-century Paris, Picasso depicts the artist, studio, and model in a timeless fashion, suggesting the universality of this tale of artistic ambition and human struggle.
- Exhibitions
2002 Setting the Scene: Interior Portland Art Museum
2013 In the Studio: Reflections on Artistic Life Portland Art Museum
