Mrs John McIlhenny, Philadelphia
Mrs John Wintersteen, Villanova
Valentine Galleries, New York
Anonymous sale, Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, 17 October 1973
Private collection, since 1973
Cambridge MA, The Fogg Art Museum, Summer Exhibition, 1934
New York, M. Knoedler & Co. Inc., Picasso before 1907, 15 October - 8 November 1947, no. 20
Philadelphia, Museum of Art, Masterpieces of Philadelphia Private Collections, 1947, no. 52
Philadelphia, Museum of Art, Picasso: a Loan Exhibition, 8 January - 23 February 1958, no. 20, ill.
Toronto, Art Gallery, Montreal, Museum of Fine Arts, Picasso and Man, respectively 11 January - 16 February 1964 and 28 February - 31 March 1964, no. 27, ill. p. 43
California, Palace of the Legion of Honour, Santa Barbara, Museum of Art, Collection of Mrs John Wintersteen, respectively 10 June - 24 July 1966 and 2 August - 4 September 1966, no. 21, ill.
Lausanne, Fondation de l’Hermitage, De Cézanne à Picasso dans les collections romandes, 15 June - 20 October 1985, no. 126, pp. 193-194, ill.
Andros, Museum of Contemporary Art, Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation, Classics of Modern Art, 27 June - 19 September 1999, pp. 98-101, ill. p. 99
Art News, vol. XXXIX, November 1930, no. 5, ill. p. 17
Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, vol. I, œuvres de 1895 à 1906, Cahiers d’art, Paris, 1932, no. 262
Blanche-Jean Taurines-Méry, Des Influences subies par Picasso, 1950, ill. p. 18
Pierre Daix and Georges Boudaille, Picasso 1900-1906: Catalogue Raisonné de l’œuvre Peint, Éditions Ides et Calendes, Neuchatel, 1966, no. 12, ill. p. 277
Alberto Moravia and Paolo Lecaldini, L’Opera Completa di Picasso blu e rosa, 1968, ill. 216
Young man with bouquet is a conception of the end of 1905, a year marking a turning point in Picasso’s artistic development. A work of simplest theme, it sheds uniquely light on a time when form, being increasingly simplified, would gradually become the main subject of the composition, which expresses merely the artist’s subjectivity.
Settled permanently in Paris since 1904, Picasso led a frugal lifestyle; he was assiduous and almost exclusively committed to his work. In his leisure time, he was visiting frequently the circus with his Spanish friends, thus finding a new source of inspiration. Moreover, he was particularly interested in the people working there, such as clowns, riders, harlequins, acrobats. The artistic nature of the circus workers and their carefree lifestyle breathed a new optimism in his painting. The dominance of blue in his palette, which until then had rendered difficult themes with a certain poetic aloofness, progressively gave way to more intense tones. Thus, we move from the so-called Blue Period to the so-called Rose Period.
Over time, Picasso left the circus environment and dealt with young boys who, whether accompanied by circus animals or not, their serious gaze was in contrast with their fresh faces. They might be acrobats, but were also likely to be neighbours of his studio or occasional minor outlaws.
In Young man with bouquet, the disarming simplicity with which the artist painted the face, slightly drawing his androgynous features, and the enigmatic smile make him a mysterious, indefinable figure. The light rose background, with some strokes in the colour of ochre, stands out from the rest of the composition, which was worked in much greater detail.
The painting owes a lot to Manet: the delicacy of the flowers, the meticulousness of the folds, the incomplete view of the background are details recognizable in the work of the aforementioned painter. In fact, the same refined elegance, the same attention to the essential emerge, as well as the same desire to avoid any vanity or pretentiousness.
Comparing this painting with the parallel works of Picasso at that time, we could see it as a farewell gift to a remarkable and charming, yet conventional painting. The Young man with bouquet is nothing but an intermediate landmark of a long career, hence it has the advantage of being a painting both metarealistic and precubist.
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