‘Subjects from Picasso’s two summers at Dinard in 1928 and 1929 resurface in these three etchings [The Beach, The Bath and The Rescue]. These summers resulted in numerous series of biomorphic bathers thought to have been inspired by Picasso’s muse and mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter (1909-1977). Conceived in the winter months of 1932, the present works re-explore the lively outdoor activities of swimming, sunbathing, and game playing associated with the sea and the beach. Each of the three prints depicts a woman with outstretched arms who reaches for a beach ball, swings a rope, dives, or aids a disabled swimmer. Two of the works date from November 1932; the third, from December.
Several women in the etchings of swimmers are modeled after Marie-Thérèse, who was known to be an avid swimmer. In both the etching of the diving woman as well as the one depicting a rescue, numerous bathers possess the unique profile and curvaceous body associated with her. The third print, composed of stippled figures playing ball or perhaps jumping rope, repeats the Surrealist influence typical in the 1928 Dinard works when she had secretly accompanied Picasso on his family vacation; it retains the spirit of similar playful scenes of women on the beach. Although the linear and biomorphic bodies of these bathers do not specifically relate to Marie-Thérèse, the seaside setting does. A painting from November 1932, catalogued by Christian Zervos, combines the diverse activities of the tree etchings into a single work (Z.VIII.64).
Various beach scenes from 1932, such as painting from the artist’s estate, elicit a spirited mixture of joy and playfulness. They thrive on physical movement and contact. The women play, dive, or swim to aid someone in distress. There is something psychologically dichotomous about these works. From image to image, they shift between the extremes of frivolity and tragedy that co-exist in Picasso’s other versions of these scenes.
The swimmer’s rescue is a frightening addition to a suite of pleasant beach and summer scenes. The drowning was also the subject of a December 1932 painting (Z.VIII.66) and repeated in graphics ([Geiser/]Baer 273-274) the day following the present example. Is this Picasso’s constant reminder of danger? Or is this simply the violent confrontation of earlier works, perhaps best exemplified by the fighting couple in the 1931 painting Figures Beside the Sea (MP131), exchanged for a scene of helplessness or distress? The aggression is gone, transformed into a “melodramatic-tragic” scene in which, instead of combating one another, humans try to save one another. Pierre Daix has suggested the situation was derived from a real event. According to Brigitte Baer, Picasso transposed a river incident and an ensuing sickness incurred by Marie-Thérèse into these drowning scenes.
The compositions for all three etchings [The Beach, The Bath and The Rescue] were drawn in 1932. The prints were pulled in 1961 for the Galerie Louise Leiris by the printer Jacques Frélaut, who was the successor of Roger Lacourière’s well-known Montmartre printing studio’.
Text: GIMÉNEZ, Carmen (ed). Museo Picasso Málaga Collection. Malaga: Museo Picasso Málaga, 2003, pp. 445-450.
