Center Stage: The Laura Pels Collection | Act I: Fine Art

Aurélia Engel has confirmed the authenticity of this work, which can be found in Françoise Gilot's archives under number SG.246.2.

Provenance:

Riggs Galleries, Inc., La Jolla, California

Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Lot note:

The present work was executed just one year after Gilot met Pablo Picasso, and features Geneviève Aliquot, one of Gilot’s most important friends, and enduring muse throughout her career. The two had met as teenagers, when they were both attending a boarding school in Neuilly. An artist in her own right, Geneviève studied under Aristide Maillol, and exhibited alongside Gilot at a small gallery in Paris owned by Madeleine Dècre. Her long, brown hair and sculptural features is what inspired Gilot over the years, who saw in Geneviève a counterpart, a mirror of herself – which is particularly telling in this double self-portrait.

Geneviève can be seen in several other paintings by Gilot of the following decades, but it is on paper, in graphite, pencil or charcoal, that Gilot most often represented her daring eyes and voluminous hair as the delicacy, and softness of the medium best spoke to their intimate relationship.