Pablo Picasso ~ Plant de tomates, 7 août, 1944
Between the third and twelfth days of August 1944 Picasso painted nine
pictures of a tomato plant perched on a window sill, all on identically
sized canvases, in vertical or horizontal formats (Zervos, vol. 14, nos.
21-29).
Marie-Thérèse kept a tomato plant on her window sill. This was a common
practice during the war, in occupied Europe as well as in countless
"victory gardens" on the Allied home front, where such fresh produce was
otherwise hard to come by. Picasso used this plant as his subject. He
had already made a series of four blue crayon drawings of a tomato
plant in his Grands-Augustins studio on 27 July (Zervos, vol. 14, nos.
13-14; fig. 3). In the entry of his Picasso memoirs dated 16 June 1944,
the photographer Brassaï recalled, "A new 'motif' has made its
appearance in the studio: two pots of tomatoes, no doubt a gift
[possibly from Marie-Thérèse?]. On the long stalks, barely hidden by
the leaves, a few tomatoes are beginning to ripen, turning from tender
green to orange. The studio is already filled with drawings and rough
gouaches depicting these plants" (in Conversations with Picasso,
Chicago, 1999, p. 196).
"Read this book if you want to understand me."—Pablo Picasso
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