Costume du manager français pour le ballet “Parade”(Costume
of the French Manager for the Ballet “Parade”, 1917)
This small (23 cm) but complex cubist ink drawing and wash is a delightful discovery, the “missing link” between the preparatory, simple sketches, mostly line-drawings, all of which are in the collection of the Musée Picasso Paris, and the finished costume for the French Manager in the ballet “Parade”. The costume itself was destroyed and is now known only from the period black-and-white photographs.
An example of the earlier drawings
The present drawing is the culmination of all of the earlier ones, presumably the final step before Picasso (or his craftsmen) created the actual costume:
The French Manager’s costume
“Parade” was the first of several ballets for which Picasso created the costumes and set design as well as the occasion of his first trip to Italy, where he met Olga. This previously unpublished drawing came from the collection of Serge Lifar, a dancer whom Picasso befriended during the production of “Parade” and who later became a famous choreographer. (The red mark at the bottom left corner is the collector’s unfortunate stamp on the verso, which has bled through this thin tracing paper.) The sheet has a number of creases, as if Picasso had folded it up and stuck it in his pocket on his way to the set. I doubt that Lifar, who collected a number of other Picassos, would have treated this one so irreverently. This just sold at auction this week for the high estimate, which with the added buyer’s premium, came to just under $100K.
An unbelievable bargain? The drawing’s provenance is guaranteed by the auction house, as they sold Lifar’s estate, including a number of other Picassos. The rest of them were prints, which look right, except one very small but interesting gouache, which to my eye is unquestionably real:
Homme à la guitare, 1920
But the Parade drawing bears too close a resemblance to the photograph. Doesn’t it strike you as odd that the actor is in the exact same position as the drawing? Could the master have stooped to tracing? I tend to doubt it. Why would he bother, given his facility for drawing, not to mention his self-respect. Having now compared the costume to the drawing carefully, I really do think the drawing is a tracing of the photo for many reasons. (One of them is that the ratio between the height and width of the costume and actor in the photo, and that of the drawing is off by only 2.5%, arguably within the margin of error of a tracing. Another has to do with the hesitant line of the drawing, uncommon for this master.) It is conceivable that Picasso created this drawing after the photograph had been developed, but I doubt it.
This drawing is small and it’s not pretty. I just find it a very interesting cubist composition, given that there’s nothing even close to it in or outside the museum walls.
Or is there? Perhaps there is a second missing link. Note the design element in the top right corner that appears to lead off the sheet, and also the graphite line along the right edge of the sheet which would appear to have been drawn to guide the cutting of the sheet. My guess is that the missing drawing is perhaps another sketch of the same French Manager, since none of the other characters in the play hold a cane or pipe. So let me know when you find it!