Boy with a Pipe

Garçon à la pipe

English: Boy with a Pipe
Artist	Pablo Picasso
Year	1905
Type	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	100 cm × 81.3 cm (39.4 in × 32.0 in)
Location	Private collection

Garçon à la Pipe (English: Boy with a Pipe) is a painting by Pablo Picasso. It was painted in 1905 when Picasso was 24 years old, during his Rose Period, soon after he settled in the Montmartre section of Paris, France. The oil on canvas painting depicts a Parisian boy holding a pipe in his left hand and wearing a garland or wreath of flowers.

The painting

Preparation

Early preparations of this work involved positioning the boy in all types of poses that involved standing, sitting or leaning against the wall.^[1] After much repositioning of the model, Picasso decided to go with the boy sitting down. Next was how to position the arm, where much time was also spent on the height and angle. Early works do not show any objects other than a pipe being used.

Although Picasso started to paint this picture, he gave it a rest period for about a month. During this time, Picasso decided to finish it off by placing a garland of flowers on the boy's head.^[1] It is not known why Picasso decided to do this, but there is a contrast between femininity and masculinity in the picture.

The boy

Le Bateau-Lavoir in Montmartre is where Picasso was living when he painted the picture. Some of the local people made a living in the entertainment industry, such as being clowns or acrobats. Picasso used many local people in his pictures, but little is known about the boy in the picture.

What appears to be fact from comments made from a variety of sources is that the boy was a model in his teen years who hung around Picasso's studio and volunteered to pose for the oil work.^[2] Picasso's own comments about the boy were that he was one of the:

From this comment, suppositions can be made. The first is that Picasso did not want people to know who the boy is, and the second is Picasso did not really know the boy. However, many reports have been made that say the boy is “p’tit Louis”,^[1][3] or "Little Louis".^[4]

Provenance

The painting was first bought by John Hay Whitney in 1950 for US$30,000.^[5][6]

On May 5, 2004 the painting was sold for US$104,168,000 at Sotheby's auction in New York City. Sotheby’s did not say who bought the painting.^[6] However, sources say that it was Guido Barilla, owner of the Barilla Group who bought the painting.^[7] At the time, it broke the record for the amount paid for an auctioned painting (when inflation is ignored). The amount, US$104 million, includes the auction price of US$93 million plus the auction house’s commission of about US$11 million.^[6] The painting was given a pre-sale estimate of US$70 million by the auction house.^[5][6]

Many art critics have stated that the painting's high sale price has much more to do with the artist's name than with the merit or historical importance of the painting. The Washington Post's article^[8][9] on the sale contained the following characterisation of the reaction:

See also

• List of most expensive paintings

References

External links

• Painting
• BBC News - Who buys paintings for $104m?

v d e Pablo Picasso Periods Blue (1901–1904) · Rose (1904–1906) · African (1907–1909) · Cubism (1910–1919) Lists of works 1889–1900 · 1901–1910 · 1911–1920 · 1921–1930 · 1931–1940 · 1941–1950 · 1951–1960 · 1961–1970 · 1971–1973 Artworks The Actor · Boy Leading a Horse · The Charnel House · Chicago Picasso · Don Quixote · Dora Maar au Chat · The Dream and Lie of Franco · Family of Saltimbanques · Femme aux Bras Croisés · Garçon à la pipe · Guernica · Jacqueline · Jeune Fille Endormie · La Lecture · Le Rêve · Les Demoiselles d'Avignon · Les Noces de Pierrette · Maya with Doll · Nude, Green Leaves and Bust · Nude in a Black Armchair · The Old Guitarist · Portrait of Angel Fernández de Soto · Portrait of Suzanne Bloch · Reading the Letter · Sylvette · Tete de femme (Dora Maar) · The Three Dancers · Three Musicians · The Weeping Woman · Woman in Hat and Fur Collar Partners Fernande Olivier (1904 to 1911) · Eva Gouel (1912 to her death in 1915) · Olga Khokhlova (married 1918, to her death in 1955, mother of Paulo) · Marie-Thérèse Walter (1927 to 1935, mother of Maya) · Dora Maar (1936 to 1944) · Françoise Gilot (1944 to 1953, mother of Claude and Paloma) · Geneviève Laporte (during the 1950s) · Jacqueline Roque (married 1961 to Picasso's death 1973) Family Paloma Picasso · José Ruiz y Blasco Colleagues and friends Georges Braque · Julio González · Max Jacob · Henri Matisse · Jaime Sabartés Patrons and biographers Gertrude Stein · Etta and Claribel Cone · Douglas Cooper · John Richardson · Daniel Kahnweiler Museums Château Grimaldi (Antibes) · Museu Picasso (Barcelona) · Musée Picasso (Paris) · Museo Picasso Málaga (Malaga) See also Surviving Picasso · Fundación Picasso Wikimedia  Picasso at Wiktionary ·  Picasso at Wikibooks ·  Picasso at Wikiquote ·  Picasso at Wikisource ·  Picasso at Commons ·  Picasso at Wikinews