Timed to go on view just as the New York previews open, Sotheby’s announces another 1932 Picasso for the London Impressionist and Modern sales in June. The work is estimated upon request but the whisper number is ~$45m:

Painted during Pablo Picasso’s ‘year of wonders’, this monumental, yet remarkably tender and intimate, painting of Marie-Thérèse absorbed in the act of writing evokes a private moment from the artist’s clandestine relationship with his most beloved muse. Awake or asleep, writing or reading, Marie-Thérèse appears in manifold guises throughout Picasso’s oeuvre. In this painting, Picasso focuses on her innocence and youthfulness, depicting her serenely penning her thoughts.

Appearing at auction for the first time in over two decades, Buste de femme de profil. Femme écrivant will highlight Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale in London on 19 June 2018.

Helena Newman, Global Co-Head of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Department & Chairman of Sotheby’s Europe, said: “This tender and romantic vision of Marie-Thérèse is a remarkably intimate portrait of the woman who has come to embody the heart and soul of the most celebrated year of Picasso’s oeuvre. Buste de femme de profil. Femme écrivant comes to auction having remained unseen in public for more than 20 years, marking the third consecutive season this year where an exceptional Picasso from the 1930s has headlined our flagship evening sale. It is all the more wonderful to offer this painting created in the spring of 1932 at a time when we are enjoying a world-class exhibition devoted to this year at Tate Modern in London.”

In this painting, Marie-Thérèse’s unmistakeable profile and sweep of blonde hair are silhouetted in front of a window at the Château de Boisgeloup, the grand house outside of Paris acquired by Picasso in 1930. Her sensual curves are echoed by the diffused green light emanating from the gardens beyond the window – the deliberate juxtaposition of the horizontals and verticals of the window frame with the soft curves of her body masterfully emphasising her form. The palette is characteristic of Picasso’s key depictions of Marie-Thérèse during this year. The composition recalls both his celebrated Cubist paintings and the series of monumental sculpted heads that he created in 1931, again inspired by Marie-Thérèse. It is the intensity and passion of the paintings from 1932 that mark them out as unique amongst the artist’s work.

Marie-Thérèse Walter entered Picasso’s life one day in January 1927, capturing his attention at first sight on the streets of Paris at a time when his turbulent relationship with his wife Olga was floundering. An intensely passionate – and creatively inspiring – relationship, this chance meeting with Marie-Thérèse galvanised his life and art. She quickly became a source of creative inspiration and veiled references to her appear in his art from that point on. However, it was only five years later in 1932 – following a landmark exhibition at Galerie Georges Petit, Paris – that the artist
announced Marie-Thérèse as an extraordinary presence in his life and art through his paintings.

Picasso almost never painted his muses from life, his depictions being inspired by the memory of them and the metamorphic power of his erotic imagination. With Marie-Thérèse in particular, the artist’s inspiration reached fever pitch in the long periods they were forced to spend apart. Here, he evokes her in a quietly contemplative mood – perhaps picturing her lover as she writes.

Christie’s has another big ticket Picasso for the May sales. With the Rockefeller’s rose-period portrait of a young girl looking to make an easy nine figures, the auction house turns to a self portrait of the artist painted during World War 2. Estimated at $70m, Christie’s is making much of the fact that the painting was owned by Victor and Sally Ganz whose collection remains one of the benchmarks of the 20th Century.

Victor Ganz was passionate about Picasso. He owned numerous works by the painter and only stopped buying when they became too expensive. Ganz bought the whole Femmes d’Algiers series of 15 works and sold off half of them to own the ones he really wanted. Christie’s points to Version O from that series which became the most expensive Picasso three years ago when the auction house sold it for $179m.

But the star Picasso work from the Ganz collection was—and is—the 1932 Marie-Thérèse portrait, Le Reve, that was damaged when Steve Wynn put his elbow through it. Just how valuable is Le Reve? Despite the damage, the work sold a few years later at a higher price than before the elbow incident at a price rumored to be near the level established by Femmes d’Algiers (Version O.)

If Le Marin, sells above the $70m asking price, other Picassos (and Ganz Picassos) will have their values revised upwards:

Le Marin last appeared at auction in 1997, as part of the legendary sale of the Collection of Victor and Sally Ganz. Over their lifetime together, Victor and Sally Ganz assembled what is still one of the most celebrated collections of the 20th Century.

“All in all, he was the best collector we had…” remarked Leo Castelli, “For anyone who wants to know this period, they must look at Victor and apply his lessons.” Of all the artists that they collected, the Ganzes were most committed to Picasso,

Prominently hung in their Manhattan living room, Le Marin was purchased by Victor Ganz for $11,000 in 1952 from the publisher Harry Abrams. It was Picasso’s only male image in the Ganz Collection.

According to his own testimony, Picasso’s earlier 1938 portrait of Maya in a sailor suit (gifted after the artist’s death to thev Museum of Modern Art, New York) is also a self-portrait. This painting, like the present picture, was originally titled Le Marin. Jerome Seckler, who interviewed Picasso, recounted their discussion of that portrait:vI described my interpretation of his painting, Le Marin, which I had seen at the Liberation Salon. I said I thought it to be a self-portrait… He listened intently and finally said, “Yes, it’s me, but I did not mean it to have any political significance at all.”

I asked why he painted himself as a sailor. “Because,” he answered, “I always wear a sailor shirt. See?” He opened up his shirt and pulled his underwear–it was white with blue stripes!

Created only weeks after the most dangerous crisis Picasso faced in World War II, Le Marin reflects the artist’s emotional and psychological distress. In 1944 Picasso said, “I have no doubt that the war is in the paintings I have done.” Perhaps no painting which he made during the Occupation more directly conveys this feeling than Le Marin.

At the outbreak of the war Picasso elected to stay in France, despite offers to move to Mexico and the United States, expressing at the time that “Most certainly, it is not a time for a creative man to fail, to shrink or to stop working”.

Although Picasso was a Spanish citizen, the decision to stay in France required a great deal of courage. As the painter of Guernica, he was an internationally recognized anti-fascist. In a speech, Hitler had denounced him by name. German agents regularly visited his studio in search of incriminating evidence, during which they insulted him and destroyed his paintings.

It was previously thought that these threats never rose above the level of harassment. However, a letter found in the Archive Picasso, dated September 16, 1943 – just five weeks before he painted Le Marin – demonstrated that the Nazis planned to deport Picasso to a concentration camp.

Picasso was saved only by the intervention of friends, Dubois and Cocteau, and especially by Arno Breker, Hitler’s favorite sculptor, who spoke to Hitler on the artist’s behalf. Other people in Picasso’s circle were not so lucky. Max Jacob, who had been one of Picasso’s closest friends, was deported to a concentration camp in the spring of 1944 and died there. That August, the Allies would liberate Paris.

Estimated in the region of $70 million, this masterpiece of the Second World War is set to realize one of the five highest prices for the artist at auction.