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Ambroise Vollard

Pablo Picasso (Spanish, Malaga 1881–1973 Mougins, France)

Date:: 1915
Medium:: Graphite on paper
Dimensions:: 18 3/8 x 12 5/8in. (46.7 x 32.1cm) Frame: 24 x 18 x 2 in. (61 x 45.7 x 5.1 cm)
Classification:: Drawings
Credit Line:: The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1947
Accession Number:: 47.140

This artwork is part of Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art

This artwork is not on display

Description

In the summer of 1915, a year after the outbreak of World War I and the mobilization of friends such as Georges Braque, André Derain, and Guillaume Apollinaire, Picasso found himself reconstructing his own life in Paris. Although the art market had ground to a halt, Picasso was casting about for a new dealer. He had always made portraits of the dealers he was wooing, so in August he made this pencil portrait of Ambroise Vollard in imitation of Ingres; it was his second effort in this style. Picasso shows Vollard sitting on a chair in his new studio on the rue Schoelcher. Although Vollard famously enjoyed sitting to artists-"He has the vanity of a woman," Picasso told Françoise Gilot-Picasso drew from a photograph, following it quite closely.
Vollard (1866-1939) was one of the most extraordinary art dealers of the twentieth century; his support of artists such as Cézanne, Gauguin, and Picasso, from 1906-11, was crucial. From his first show at Vollard's gallery on the rue Laffitte in 1901, through his creation, in the 1930s, of the set of one hundred etchings known as the Vollard Suite, Picasso had great but wary respect for the canny dealer and even, as one sees in this portrait, some affection. Although Vollard never gave Picasso the contract he wanted, he kept this drawing until his death.
Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Signature: Signed and dated in graphite, lower right: ¦Picasso¦ / Paris Aout 1915
Exhibition History

Paris: Musée Picasso, October 4, 1996 - December 12, 1994. ¦Max Jacob and Picasso¦. Exh. cat. no. 155, p. 120 (illus.).

New York: Museum of Modern Art, Apr. 28-Sept. 17, 1996; Paris: Grand Palais, Oct. 1996-Jan. 1997. ¦Picasso and Portraiture: Representation and Transformation¦. Exh. cat., William Rubin, p. 299 (illus.).

New York: MMA, September 13, 2006 – January 7, 2007; Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, February 17, 2007 – May 13, 2007; Paris: Musee D'Orsay, June 11 – September 16, 2007, ¦Ambroise Vollard: Patron of the Avant-Garde¦.

New York. The Frick Collection. "Picasso's Drawings, 1890–1921: Reinventing Tradition," October 4, 2011–January 8, 2012, no. 59 (as "Portrait of Ambroise Vollard").
References

Bois, Yve-Alain, ed. Picasso Harlequin 1917-1937, Rome, Italy: Complesso del Vittoriano, October 10, 2008 - February 8, 2009, illus. pg. 24, discussed pg. 24.