Pablo Picasso
Le Transformateur, 1953 (The Transformer)
1953

About the Item

Le Transformateur is an oil on canvas painting with a canvas size of 8.75 x 10.5 inches, signed 'Picasso' lower right and dated upper left '10 juin 53'. Framed in a custom, closed-corner, white gold frame. ZERVOS 15 no. 273 C. Zervos, Pablo Picasso, oeuvres de 1946 à 1953, vol. 15, Paris, 1965, no. 273 (illustrated p. 150). EXHIBITED: Charlotte, NC, The Mint Museum, Picasso Landscapes: Out of Bounds, February-May 2023 LITERATURE C. Zervos, Pablo Picasso, oeuvres de 1946 à 1953, vol. 15, Paris, 1965, no. 273 (illustrated p. 150). K. Gallwitz, Picasso The Heroic Years, New York, 1985, no. 65 (illustrated p. 66). The Picasso Project (eds.), Picasso's Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings and Sculpture. The Fifties I, 1950-1955, San Francisco, 2002, no. 53-035 (illustrated p. 118). Enrique Mallen (ed.), Online Picasso Project, Sam Houston State University, OPP 53-226 (accessed 2012). The Mint Museum, Picasso Landscapes: Out of Bounds, Charlotte, NC, 2023, p.76, pl. 29 (illustrated) Le Transformateur was painted on June 10, 1953, and is therefore one of the first of a string of landscape paintings that Pablo Picasso created during that time showing approximately the same view in Vallauris, where he was then living. It was five years earlier that he had acquired the Villa La Galloise, and moved there with Françoise Gilot. The villa was near the top of a hill in Vallauris, the centre of the pottery industry which Picasso would do so much to transform. It was set within several acres of grounds, giving the artist space and greenery. This painting was previously in the collection of Herman C. Goldsmith, a collector who owned several works by Picasso as well as others by Henri Matisse and Giorgio Morandi. Picasso's landscapes form crucial milestones throughout his career. In many of his homes, be it in Paris, its environs, or in the South of France, he would exert a certain seigniorial sense of possessiveness through his paintings of the interior or exterior. This is apparently the case in Le Transformateur and the pictures that came after it, also exploring the tall tower-like building and the leaning tree that dominate the composition here. In many of those pictures, the outlines of these features would become increasingly abstract and stylized. Picasso's incredible sense of energy and enthusiasm is patently visible in the swirls of paint with which he has rendered the foliage in particular. Meanwhile, in the background, the cables that hang across the picture add a sense of man-made rigidity, bold horizontals that contrast with the more explosive depiction of the greenery and the sky.

Creator:
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973, Spanish)
Creation Year:
1953
Dimensions:
Height: 18 in (45.72 cm)Width: 19.5 in (49.53 cm)
Medium:
Canvas,Oil
Movement & Style:
Modern
Period:
20th Century
Condition:
good condition with wear to the 4 canvas corners, some surface soiling, and some small cracks in the ink above the date area and the tower roof.
Gallery Location:
Greenwich, CT
Reference Number:
Seller: 2381stDibs: LU2664213449022
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