The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Jardin de Paris (Design for a Poster)

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Jardin de Paris (Design for a Poster)

Pablo Picasso (Spanish, Malaga 1881–1973 Mougins, France)

Date:: 1901
Medium:: Ink and watercolor on paper
Dimensions:: 25 1/2 x 19 1/2in. (64.8 x 49.5cm) 35 x 28 1/2 x 1 1/2 in. (88.9 x 72.4 x 3.8 cm) (Frame)
Classification:: Drawings
Credit Line:: Gift of Raymonde Paul, in memory of her brother, C. Michael Paul, 1982
Accession Number:: 1982.179.17a, b

This artwork is not on display

Description

As a young artist, Picasso availed himself of every opportunity for commercial work. During his early stays in Paris, he lived and worked in Montmartre, the locus of nocturnal pleasures both innocent and guilty. The streets were plastered with posters for the big dance halls-Le Moulin Rouge, Le Moulin de la Galette-as well as smaller cafés.

Picasso executed this design for Le Jardin de Paris, a Parisian dance hall, as a speculative bid. Located near the Champs Elysées, Le Jardin de Paris was the summer outpost of Le Moulin Rouge and was likewise managed by the Catalan Josep Oller (1839-1922). Borrowing from the imagery of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso also adopted Lautrec's signature tonal shading, here achieved by flicking a brush. Given that Lautrec was gravely ill and had stopped working, Picasso may have hoped to position himself as his successor. However, Oller did not buy the design, and a short time later, Picasso reused the back of this work to sketch preliminary compositions for the "The Mourners" (private collection) and "The Burial of Casagemas" (Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris), dedicated to his late friend Carles Casagemas, in whose apartment he was living and whose mistress, Germaine (Laure Gargallo), was now his own.
Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Signature: Signed in ink, lower right: -¦Picasso¦-

Inscription: Inscribed, at top: - JARDIN / PARIS - Verso: Study for "The Mourners" and "Evocation (Burial of Casagemas)." Paris, Summer or early Autumn 1901, charcoal
Exhibition History

Bern, Switzerland: Kunst Museum, December 6, 1984-February 17,1985;
Picasso: The Early years.

Boston, Mass.: Museum of Fine Arts, June 5-September 1,1991; New York: IBM Gallery, October 15-December 28, 1991. Pleasures of Paris.

France: Musee National Picasso, October 15, 1998 - January 15, 1999. ¦Picasso: 1901 - 1909¦.

Washington,D.C.: National Gallery of Art, March 20-June 12, 2005; The Art Institute of Chicago, July 16-October 10, 2005; Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre. p. 166, no. 174, illus. in color.

Eating Fire: Picasso's Discovery of Paris (1900-1907), Museu Picasso, Barcelona, June 29, 2011- October 16, 2011