The Painter and his Model, 1964

Pablo Picasso

Narrator: In this painting, one of Picasso’s most enduring motifs takes on monumental form – the encounter between artist and model. During the autumn and winter of 1964, he painted more than forty variations on this theme. Here, the studio becomes a space where the artist’s gaze and the model’s presence meet in a staged dialogue about looking and making.

On the left stands the painter – a kind of self-image, but also a symbol of the artist across history. On the right is the nude model, bearing the features often associated with Jacqueline. Her pose is steady and composed.

The objects that recur in the series – easel, palette, model’s couch – are not taken from life. Picasso rarely used an easel and did not work with a palette. Instead, the studio functions as a symbolic setting in which he examines what it means to create and to behold.

The series reflects Picasso’s lifelong dialogue with art history – with painters such as Rubens, Ingres and Rembrandt. Classical ideals of the nude are combined with the expressive freedom characteristic of his late work.
 
In the painter’s hand we see brushes and palette – the painting’s most charged details. They take the form of an opening flower, but also of a sexual organ, signalling desire and creative force.
 
At this late stage in his life, Picasso revisits one of his most familiar motifs with a mixture of seriousness and wit. The painting shows how, for him, creation could be an act of reflection in which the boundaries between art and life become fluid.