Picasso turned the youth in the drawing of the same title (MMA 1999.363.68) into the weather-beaten old man seen in this painting. Given the artist's predilection for the sexual and the macabre, and as an astute reader of Freud, he was perhaps poking fun at those who, late in life, revert to childlike pleasures or seek substitutes for erotic ones.
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Inscription: Signed and dated (upper left): 20A38 / Picasso
[Galerie Käte Perls, Paris, and Perls Galleries (Klaus and Frank Perls), New York, 1938; acquired from the artist]; Walter P. Chrysler, New York and Warrenton, Virginia (by 1939–50; sale, Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, February 16, 1950, no. 16, sold for $5,100, to Bragaline); Edward A. Bragaline, New York (1950–at least 1963); [E. V. Thaw & Co., New York, ca. 1983]; Wendell Cherry, Louisville, Kentucky (ca. 1984); [Acquavella Galleries, New York, until 1985; sold on February 14, 1985 to Gelman]; Jacques and Natasha Gelman, Mexico City and New York (1985–his d. 1986); Natasha Gelman, Mexico City and New York (1986–d. 1998; her bequest to MMA)
New York. Museum of Modern Art. "Picasso: Forty Years of His Art," November 15, 1939–January 7, 1940, no. 355.
Art Institute of Chicago. "Picasso: Forty Years of His Art," February 1–March 5, 1940, no. 355.
City Art Museum of Saint Louis. "Picasso: Forty Years of His Art," March 16–April 14, 1940, no. 355.
Boston. Museum of Fine Arts. "Picasso: Forty Years of His Art," April 26–May 25, 1940, no. 335.
Richmond. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. "Collection of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.," January 16–March 4, 1941, no. 187.
Philadelphia Museum of Art. "Collection of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.," March 29–May 11, 1941, no. 187.
New York. Perls Galleries. "Picasso: The Thirties," January 5–February 7, 1953, no. 14.
New York. Museum of Modern Art. "Picasso: 75th Anniversary Exhibition," May 22–September 8, 1957, unnumbered cat. (p. 80).
Art Institute of Chicago. "Picasso: 75th Anniversary Exhibition," October 29–December 8, 1957, unnumbered cat.
Philadelphia Museum of Art. "Picasso: A Loan Exhibition of His Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture, Ceramics, Prints and Illustrated Books," January 8–February 23, 1958, no. 198.
New York. Perls Galleries. "Picasso: An American Tribute," April 25–May 12, 1962, no. 17.
New York. M. Knoedler & Co., Inc. "Twentieth Century Masters from the Bragaline Collection for the Benefit of the Museum of Early American Folk Arts," November 6–23, 1963, no. 26.
New York. Saidenberg Gallery. "Homage to Picasso for His 90th Birthday: Joint Exhibition of Paintings and Works on Paper. Years: 1901–1924," October 6–30, 1971, no. 55.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Twentieth-Century Modern Masters: The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection," December 12, 1989–April 1, 1990, unnumbered cat. (p. 208).
London. Royal Academy of Arts. "Twentieth-Century Modern Masters: The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection," April 19–July 15, 1990, unnumbered cat.
Martigny. Fondation Pierre Gianadda. "De Matisse à Picasso: Collection Jacques et Natasha Gelman," June 18–November 1, 1994, unnumbered cat. (p. 232).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," April 27–August 1, 2010, no. 84.
Christian Zervos. "Tableaux magiques de Picasso." Cahiers d'art 13, nos. 3–10 (1938), p. 179, ill.
Alfred M. Frankfurter. "Picasso in Retrospect: 1939–1900: The Comprehensive Exhibition in New York and Chicago." Art News 38 (November 18, 1939), p. 20, ill.
James Thrall Soby. "Picasso: A Critical Estimate." Parnassus 11 (December 1939), p. 8, ill. p. 12.
Jean Cassou. Picasso. London, 1940, p. 140, ill.
Helen F[rances]. Mackenzie. Understanding Picasso: A Study of His Styles and Development. Chicago, 1940, pl. 19.
Alfred M. Frankfurter. "341 Documents of Modern Art: The Chrysler Collection." Art News 39 (January 18, 1941), p. 17, ill.
"Pablo Picasso." Virginia Museum Bulletin 1 (February 1, 1941), p. 1.
Marion Junkin. "The Chrysler Collection." Art in America 29 (1941), p. 105.
Alfred H. Barr Jr. Picasso: Fifty Years of His Art. New York, 1946, pp. 218–19, ill.
André Leclerc. Picasso. New York, [1947], p. 41, ill.
Joan Merli. Picasso, el artista y la obra de nuestro tiempo. 2nd ed. (1st ed.,1942). Buenos Aires, 1948, p. 604, pl. 520.
Frank Elgar and Robert Maillard. Picasso: Étude de l'oeuvre. Paris, 1955, pp. 178–79, ill. p. 288.
Frank Elgar and Robert Maillard. Picasso: A Study of His Work. New York, 1956, pp. 178–79, ill. p. 288.
Antonina Vallentin. Pablo Picasso. Paris, 1957, p. 335.
Sam Hunter. Picasso (Born 1881): Cubism to the Present. New York, 1957, ill. opp. pl. 10.
Christian Zervos. Pablo Picasso. Vol. 9, Works from 1937 to 1939. Paris, 1958, p. 98, no. 203, ill.
Pierre de Champris. Picasso: Ombre et soleil. Paris, 1960, p. 291, no. 171, ill. p. 160.
Hans Ludwig C. Jaffé. Pablo Picasso. New York, 1964, p. 28, fig. 35.
Hans Ludwig C. Jaffé. Pablo Picasso. Paris, 1967, p. 26.
Roland Penrose. The Eye of Picasso. New York and Toronto, 1967, pl. 24.
Grace Glueck. "Trendless but Varied, the Season Starts: New York." Art in America 59 (September–October 1971), pp. 118–19, ill.
Eunice Lipton. "Picasso Criticism, 1901–1939: The Making of the Artist-Hero." PhD diss., New York University, 1976, pp. 266, 380, pl. 29.
Pierre Daix. La Vie de peintre de Pablo Picasso. Paris, 1977, pp. 287, 290 n. 19.
Hans Ludwig C. Jaffé. Pablo Picasso. Concise ed. London, 1988, pp. 28, 110, fig. 35.
Mariel Jardines. The Picasso Project: Picasso's Paintings, Watercolours, Drawings, and Sculpture, A Comprehensive Illustrated Catalogue, 1885–1973. Ed. Herschel B. Chipp and Alan Wofsy. Vol. 6, Spanish Civil War, 1937–1939. San Francisco, 1997, pp. xv, 182, no. 38-149, ill.
Julia May Boddewyn in Michael FitzGerald. Picasso and American Art. Exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, 2006, pp. 353, 355, 370, 377.
Gary Tinterow inPicasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Gary Tinterow and Susan Alyson Stein. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2010, p. 12, fig. 16 (color, installation photo, Gelman apartment, 1989).
Sabine Rewald inPicasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Gary Tinterow and Susan Alyson Stein. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2010, pp. 227, 229–30, no. 84, ill. (color).
Isabelle Duvernois inPicasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Gary Tinterow and Susan Alyson Stein. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2010, p. 230.
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, Malaga 1881–1973 Mougins, France)
1929
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