Claude in Brown and White

'In this portrait of Picasso´s son Claude (born 1947), both the painted and unpainted surface of the plywood support contribute to the visual scene. Areas of the work have been left intentionally bare and function as integral elements of the overall composition. This technique-giving the support a role in the conception of the work—is analogous to manipulating the form of a sculpture or molding a ceramic object into shape and may reflect Picasso’s experiments, in the three previous years, with clay sculpture and ceramics at the studio of Suzanne and Georges Ramié in Vallauris.

Many of the Vallauris paintings were executed on plywood. A large number of those created between 1950 and 1953 were also framed much like the present example; they were probably furnished to the artist preframed, for traces of paint often extend beyond the painted plywood onto the frame [1].

The coal-brown tones here, similar to the those in Picasso’s Portrait of a Painter after El Greco from February 1950(Z.XV.165), seem more appropriate to an adult’s portrait than that of a child. Such colors, as well as the stark contrast of light and dark in the face, make the setting somber and weigh heavily upon the figure. The round features of the child’s head recall the curvilinear style epitomized by L’Atelier de la modiste, 1926(MNAM, Paris, Z.VII,.2), and comparable works such as the series of head studies for Vollard’s edition of Honoré de Balzac’s Le Chef-d’œuvre inconnu (Four Studies of Heads. Balzac, Le Chef d´oeuvre inconnu, Juan-les-Pins, Antibes, August - 22 September 1926).

In the present painting and similar early portraits of both Claude and Paloma, one sees what has generally been recognized as Picasso’s return to Spanish baroque characteristics: Claude’s presence, or perhaps his innocence, commands our attention much like the seemingly shy Infanta Margarita of Velázquez’s Las Meninas (Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid). Picasso’s portrait of his son may be seen as an image of succession in his family in the same way that the Infanta, portrayed by Velázquez, would have been heiress to the Spanish crown.

Claude was born in May of 1947 and would have been almost three years old when this portrait is thought to have been painted in Vallauris in early 1950. The chair on the viewer’s right is also depicted in a painting of the artist’s children Claude and Paloma (Z.XV.157), dated 20 February 1950 [2]. More important, Claude’s face is represented almost identically. Other paintings of the two children from January and February 1950 show them playing in colorful environments with writing and drawing instruments, tricycles, and various dolls and other toys. Incorrectly listed in the estate inventory as “Fillette en brun et blanc” (Young girl in brown and white), the sitter of the Museum’s portrait was identified as Claude by later comparison with contemporaneous portraits of the two children, such as the example (Z.XV.157) noted above from the artist’s estate’ [3].


[1 and 2] GIMÉNEZ, Carmen. 1994. Picasso. Primera mirada. Cat. exp. (Malaga: Palacio Episcopal, 1994- 1995; Sevilla: Pabellon Mudejar, 1995; Nimes: Carré d’Art, Musée d’Art Contemporain, 1995). Sevilla: Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo, PP. 318-319.
[3] GIMÉNEZ, Carmen (ed). Collection Museo Picasso Málaga. Malaga: Museo Picasso Málaga, 2003, pp. 140-142.