‘It is Jacqueline’s images that dominates Picasso’s work from 1954 until his death, longer than any of the women who preceded her. It is her body that we are able to explore more exhaustively and more intimately than any other body in the history of art’
Picasso would meet Jacqueline Roque in 1952 in the south of France, where she was working as a salesperson for Picasso's great collaborators in the field of ceramics, the Ramiés. Jaqueline was one of several women competing for Picasso’s attention following his break-up with Françoise Gilot. Jacqueline's unflappable support and willingness to sacrifice herself on the altar of his ego won the artist's heart and they would quickly become lovers, remaining together for the rest of the Picasso’s life. After living together in the south of France in the early 1950s, a period in which she would inspire his Les femmes d’Alger, the couple then would move back to Picasso’s studio in Paris before marrying in 1961, returning to Cannes, and settling there for the rest of the artist’s life. Jacqueline would henceforth populate Picasso's paintings, drawings and prints as the archetypal woman, nearly always nude, as in the present work.
Picasso's life has often been divided into periods according to the influence of his lovers, including Fernande, Marie-Thérèse, Dora and Françoise amongst others; Jacqueline was Picasso's last love, a fact that was reflected in the decision to marry her. Likewise, Jacqueline was one of the most important figures in his life, protecting the artist from the increasing demands that came as the cost of his incredible fame and reputation at the time. Picasso and Jaqueline lived a charmed life at Notre-Dame-de-Vie, the large villa by Mougins which would provide his home for the rest of his life.
Picasso had always experienced particular bursts of creativity during periods of his most intense love, and this bronze relief hails from the couple’s contented post-marital period in 1962 as they settled themselves in Southern France. Picasso and Jacqueline would move into a large house in the town of Mougins. So emphatically would Jacqueline make her imprint on the locale that she came to be referred to as the ‘Mistress of Mougins’, a characterisation only furthered by her presence across the walls of Picasso’s home. Hélène Parmelin, a diarist and close friend of the couple, would describe the effect of Picasso’s 1962 series as follows:
‘Picasso kept showing us serious faces with huge close-set eyes, sort of Mona Lisas with elongated hands… women engrossed beneath hats, or bareheaded with eyes with eyes and hair in every shape and position; one with a little head, full face and double profile, within her great sombre profile… They are the Dames de Mougins, the queens, the beloved ones, the Jacquelines, all watching us at once with an incomparable serenity’.
