Picasso portrait valued at US$50 million going on show in Hong Kong ahead of February auction
Poignant painting of serial polygamist’s then lover Marie-Thérèse Walter was completed in 1937, the year of artist’s anti-war painting Guernica
A poignant portrait by Pablo Picasso of his lover Marie-Thérèse Walter will be shown in Hong Kong from January 30 to February 2 ahead of its auction in London next month.
Femme au béret et à la robe quadrillée (Marie-Thérèse Walter) is expected to sell for in the region of US$50 million at the Impressionist and Modern Art evening sale in London on February 28, according to auctioneer Sotheby’s.
It was painted in 1937, a year described as “pivotal” by Helena Newman, Sotheby’s global co-head of Impressionist and modern art, as the horrors of the Spanish civil war prompted the painter to produce his powerful anti-war painting Guernica and the “Weeping Woman” series.
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Walter became Picasso’s muse and lover at the age of 17 after the painter saw her outside the Galeries Lafayette department store in Paris and was struck by her physical appearance. Picasso kept Walter hidden from his wife, Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova, for years, and in 1935, Walter gave birth to their daughter Maya.