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Josep Fondevila

1906
Not on view
Josep Fondevila was the nonagenarian innkeeper at Cal Tampanada, the modest lodging where Picasso and Fernande Olivier stayed in Gósol. Picasso liked him immediately, perhaps seeing in him a grandfatherly and approving figure as his relationship with Fernande deepened to something resembling a marriage. Fernande described Fondevila as "a fierce old fellow, a former smuggler, with a strange, wild beauty. He's over ninety but has kept his hair, and although his teeth are worn down to the gums, they are very white and not one of them is missing or has ever been damaged. He's difficult and cantankerous with everyone else but always good-humored with Pablo, whose portrait of him is very lifelike." According to Fernande, Picasso was "spell-bound as a child" listening to Fondevila's smuggling stories.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Josep Fondevila
  • Artist: Pablo Picasso (Spanish, Malaga 1881–1973 Mougins, France)
  • Date: 1906
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 17 3/4 × 15 3/4 in. (45.1 × 40.3 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Gift of Florene M. Schoenborn, 1992
  • Object Number: 1992.37
  • Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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