Posted on 10/24/2025 10:51:53 AM PDT by Red Badger
A vividly hued Picasso portrait of longtime muse and partner Dora Maar that had remained out of view for more than eight decades sold Friday at auction for 32 million euros (about $37 million), including fees.
Painted in July 1943, “Bust of a Woman with a Flowered Hat (Dora Maar)” depicts Maar in a brightly colored floral hat. Maar, an artist and photographer herself, had been Picasso’s partner and muse for about seven years, and the relationship was coming to a painful close. The work was purchased in 1944 and had not been on the market since, remaining in the family collection.
The painting was auctioned at the Drouot auction house in Paris, which heralded the reappearance of the work, part of Picasso’s “Woman in a Hat” series, “a moment of rare significance, revealing for the first time the full radiance of a work long kept secret.”
Auctioneer Christophe Lucien called the final sale, to a buyer in the room, “an enormous success,” and well higher than original estimates. He said the price — 32,012,397 euros after adding buyer fees to the 27-million hammer price — was not only well above estimates but also the highest price paid at auction this year for an artwork in France.
He called the painting “a little piece of the story of love” — albeit a bittersweet one — between Picasso and Maar.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
I’ve seen those sorts of things scribbled on restroom walls ...
Third base for the Dodgers, back in the late '80s?
Hideous!
Picasso is world renown b/c he brought the art world out of the
age of “art as sentimentality” and into the new age of Modern art.
Picasso is also renowned for “cubism”—painting in three dimensions
on a flat surface. That’s why his paintings look the way they do.
Looks like something the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood would have painted.
Eye of the beholder. I personally love Picasso’s work. Since I can’t afford them I painted copies of 2 of his paintings and they are hanging in the foyer.
I hope you stayed inside the lines.....................
I totally did. 😆
I wouldn’t give you 37 cents for it.
...and the numbers didn’t show through?..............
Of course Art is subjective but Picasso, when he was young, produced work that was almost photo realistic. When Einstein produced his theory of Relativity in the early 20th century, and most people found it difficult to comprehend, Picasso introduced cubism which presented objects from all sides simultaneously indicating an appreciation for one of the core principles of Relativity.
If you look at Picasso works as a presentation of what we see at a static point in time than you would be correct in they do not make sense. If you look at his works as what we think and see from different perspectives relative to your position in time and space than they become interesting.
Think of a landscape. Most artist are going to paint what you see. Picasso is painting what you see and all the thoughts and feelings going through your head at the same time. He was trying to provoke your imagination albeit some people have less imagination than others. Then there is also his use of color... :)
I hate the majority of Picasso’s later art. Some of his early work was decent, but then his work turned to shit.
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