The image is an expression of the artist's love for his model, which is evident in the use of fluid lines and the balance of colours. In the background, the light of the sun can be seen shining through a window, which is partially obscured by a leafy indoor plant. This painting presents a nude female reclining on a black chair. I am Picasso.' The name meant nothing to Marie-Thérèse, but the fact that an artist found her beautiful thrilled her." This was the beginning of a long-term affair that remained a secret until 1958. 'You have an interesting face,' Picasso told her. "She was at the Galeries Lafayette that day to buy a col Claudine-a Peter Pan collar-and matching cuffs. In 2011, John Richardson, Picasso's biographer related this event. Picasso was 45 years of age, but Walter, who was aged just 17, was impressed. Their first meeting occurred outside the Galeries Lafayette in Paris, when Picasso stopped Walter in the street and asked to paint her portrait. Picasso met Walter in 1927, while he was married to the Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova. The painting was purchased by Les Wexner at Christie's auction in 1999 for the value of $45.1 million. Painted on 9 March 1932, a time at which Picasso lived in Boisgeloup outside Paris, it is the first and largest of a series of paintings Picasso completed that year of his mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter. Nude in a Black Armchair (French: Nu au Fauteuil Noir) is an oil on canvas painting by Pablo Picasso. Are these metaphors for how our parents and siblings try to mold us and shape us and define us all the way into adulthood? Is this a comment about the outside pressures and forces that we must endure and resist daily as we strive to be individuals?įamily Games is clever work, and worthy of a careful look.Painting by Pablo Picasso Nude in a Black Armchair In the aptly titled closing sequence, “Pulling Faces,” Ducruet is center stage again in grids of self-portraits as her face is repeatedly poked, prodded, pinched, pressed, stretched, distorted and tugged by hands from outside the frame. A series of black-and white portraits show the two as they silently ridicule each other with straight faces. The “Mother and Daughter” sequence becomes even more troubling. In one pose she sits half-nude with a huge sausage stuffed in her mouth. In “Performances of the Ordinary,” Ducruet turns the camera on herself as she assumes awkward and absurd poses, poking fun at herself. The metaphors are clearly intentional, and the friction feels real. In a group called “Dialogues,” Ducruet’s mother and father are literally in each other’s faces with odd shows of affection - pinching cheeks, biting each other, and tweaking noses. This box of family photos continues to explore variations on the themes of family influence, manipulation and control. It’s funny, but it has an undercurrent that creates a taut tension. This is just one of many poses in this series, and the women are clearly directing the show here - the men perform as they are told. Her mother draws the same scene (perhaps exaggerating the size of the belly), and both views - photo and drawing - are presented side by side. He appears a bit ridiculous, like a modern-day Quixote. Ducruet photographs him from below, with his foot perched on lichen-colored solid rock. In one hilarious stance, the father poses as an archer ready to launch an invisible arrow with an invisible bow. In one series, the males of the family (father and son) seem not the least bit embarrassed to be pictured dressed only in underwear, with slightly sagging bellies, as they assume comic-heroic poses that mimic old paintings and historic statues.ĭucruet stages the scenarios and makes photographs, while her mother sketches each pose from a slightly different perspective with charcoal on paper. The work becomes a kaleidoscope of subtext as members of the family slip in and out of expected roles: mother, father, sister, brother, daughter, son, husband and wife. In this brilliant photo book called Family Games, French photographer Diane Ducruet has broken free of all the usual formulas and has come up with a thought-provoking series of staged portraits that play with the ideas of family dynamics, identity, control, influence, postures of power, and more. But on closer examination, we see that this extended performance of role-playing and intimate interactions is serious art, and not quite so light and frivolous as it seems at first. Well, yes, it’s a family of artists, and each seems comfortable revealing playful, creative poses that are far from ordinary family snapshots. At first glance, it looks like everyone in the family is having fun, acting out goofy scenarios for the camera.
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