Woman with stroller

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Woman with stroller
Pablo Picasso , 1950
Plaster of paris, baked clay, ceramics, metal, cake pans, wood and strollers
203 × 145 cm
Museum Ludwig , Cologne

Link to the picture
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Woman with a stroller (French: Femme à la voiture d'enfant ) is a figural sculpture by Pablo Picasso from 1950. It has the dimensions 203 × 145 × 61 cm and is exhibited in the Museum Ludwig in Cologne. It is the first groupsculptureby Pablo Picasso with an assemblage character, in which he “depicts perceived femininity that is able to fascinate and disturb the attentive viewer.” The bronze for this sculpture is named Femme avec poussette d'enfant at the Musée Picasso in Paris.

description

Both parts of the group are connected with plaster from different finds . The woman is wearing wooden high heels . Two elaborate big toes are visible on a shoe. Above this is a structured ceramic plate, curved outwards, reminiscent of a dress. The body of the figure is formed from an ornamented cast-iron stove plate, reminiscent of the embroidery on a blouse. The breasts form cake molds embedded in plaster of paris, which sit on a high rectangular board above the oven plate as an extra-long neck. A small hemispherical head with lines and dots as a face sits on it, also made of plaster of paris.

The arms and shoulders are modeled from plaster of paris and start well below the breasts. This creates a particularly elongated proportionality of the figure. The arms end in claw-like hands made of wood or clay oven temperature display stones.

From the back, the curved ceramic plate was irregularly filled with plaster. The stove plate remains partially visible. Metal chains extending from the head create a braid- like hairstyle due to their pattern . These braided plaits are spanned by two metal wires like a hair band.

The stroller essentially consists of just a frame. A wheel can be identified as a sieve.

The toddler is formed from various pieces of pottery, which in turn are connected with plaster of paris. As with women, a face can be recognized by a mouth line and two eye points.

interpretation

There are several different interpretations in the literature. All of them assume that the different structures z. B. the stove plate or the ceramic parts can be seen as a pattern for clothing. There are also similarities in the stroller.

The stroller is seen as a slightly alienated reality (through a sieve as a wheel) in the group sculpture.

What is striking is the spatial structure of the pram with its almost graphically surrounding line. The flowing movement of the backrests and of course the child himself take up these movements. The bow legs and the lace-trimmed brim of the sun hat create some humorous details.

In contrast, the female figure is seen in a more differentiated manner.

Picasso creates a shape with different structures. This makes surface stimuli visible. The adoption of the structures from the found objects determines his search for these found objects .

“Picasso did not assemble any random object that had just fallen into his hands. Rather, he picked up objects on his forays that suited his predisposition. "

The alienation aspect is continued by casting these sculptures into a bronze. In addition, the bronze sculpture was intended for painting.

Picasso himself explained to Françoise Gilot (partner from 1943 to 1953 and mother of Claude and Paloma ) that one of the strategies of Cubism is not the trompe-l'oeil (deceiving the eye) - the deception of the eye, but rather the trompe-l 'Esprit, (deceiving the mind) about the irritation of thought.

In other words, it is about visual deceptions or massive irritations caused by images of an unreal reality that appear real.

“For Picasso, content- related implications played no role; he was interested in the combination game of the various objects, as the use of the same objects in a different context shows. "

André Malraux , a writer friend of Picasso, found this figure in a storage room after Picasso's death.

One arm was broken and one arm was stretched forward. As a result of their idiosyncratic anatomical and proportional proportions, he interprets the breasts as insect eyes and the elongated head as an oriental-looking headdress.

The French art historian Marie-Laure Bernadac, on the other hand, sees the portrayal of Françoise Gilot and son Claude in the sculpture as an everyday scene, and at the same time this seemingly grotesque scene is also a monumental image of motherhood for her.

The art historian Peter Lodermeyer creates another thought bridge in this context. He points out that in her memoirs, Life with Picasso , Françoise Gilot reported about her tensions and quarrels with Picasso during this time.

“In the middle of this time of alienation, the woman with a stroller emerged, which suggests that Picasso, by equipping the figure of the mother with the opposing characteristics of idealizing the maternal and denouncing the feminine as a configuration of death, also dealt with his biographical situation here ".

Provenance

  • undated, Marina Picasso collection
  • undated, Jan Krugier Gallery, Geneva
  • until June 27, 1994, Peter Ludwig and Irene Ludwig, Aachen
  • 1986 to June 27, 1994, Museum Ludwig, Cologne (loan since 1986)

literature

  • Museum Ludwig Cologne (ed.): Art of the 20th century. Taschen, Cologne 1976.
  • Yilmaz Dziewior (ed.): Museum Ludwig. Art 20./21. Century. König, Cologne 2018.
  • Siegfried Gohr (Ed.): Museum Ludwig Cologne. Paintings, sculptures, environments from Expressionism to the present. Inventory catalog. Prestel, Munich 1986.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Werner Spies: Picasso. Sculptures. University Press an imprint from Verlagshaus Römerweg, Berlin 2008, p. 386 .
  2. ↑ Peter Lodermeyer: Art as a mythopoetic handicraft. An interpretation of Picasso's plastic woman with a stroller. In: Friends of the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum and the Museum Ludwig eV (Ed.): Wallraf-Richartz-Museum-Jahrbuch . tape 61 . Cologne 2000, p. 303 .
  3. ↑ Werner Spies: Picasso. Sculptures. Had Cantz, 2007, p. 268 .
  4. ↑ Peter Lodermeyer: Transformation of Still Life in Pablo Picasso's Post-Cubist Painting . Münster 1999, p. 18 .
  5. ↑ Guest author Prof. Dr. Peter Heilig: Trompe l-Oeil / Trompe l'Esprit: Deception of the senses / Deception of the sense | VAN SWIETEN BLOG - Information and news. Retrieved on March 21, 2020 (German).
  6. ↑ Evelyn Weiss and Maria Teresa Ocana (eds.): Piaccso. The Ludwig Collection. Exhibition catalog. Prestel, Munich 1993.
  7. ↑ Peter Lodermeyer: Art as a mythopoetic handicraft. An interpretation of Picasso's plastic woman with a stroller . In: Friends of the Wallraf-Richartz Museum and the Museum Ludwig eV (ed.): Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch . tape 61 . Cologne 2000, p. 297 .
  8. ↑ Marie-Laure Bernadac: Picasso Museum of Paris. The masterpieces. Prestel, Munich 1991, p. 172 .
  9. ^ Françoise Gilot: Life with Picasso . Kindler, Munich 1965.
  10. ↑ Peter Lodermeyer: Art as a mythopoetic handicraft. An interpretation of Picasso's plastic woman with a stroller. In: Friends of the Wallraf-Richartz Museum and the Museum Ludwig eV (ed.): Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch . tape 61 . Cologne 2000, p. 303 .
  11. ↑ Cologne's cultural heritage: Picasso, Pablo, femme à la voiture d'enfant (woman with a stroller / femme à la poussette). Retrieved March 20, 2020 .