Pablo PICASSO (1881-1973) d'après - Lot 168

Lot n° 168
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Estimation :
25000 - 30000 EUR
Pablo PICASSO (1881-1973) d'après - Lot 168
Pablo PICASSO (1881-1973) d'après Fauna face Round/square plate Silver 1st title, 960 grams Numbered HC 6/6 Diameter : 27 cm Provenance: François Hugo, France Private collection, France Hugo's workshop When I met Pablo Picasso for the first time, I was 10 years old. My father François Hugo had already been working for him for one or two years. Picasso looked at me with his keen eye and wondered what a kid like me could do in the workshop of this master goldsmith. I watched my father work. The look in the great painter's eyes intrigued me and scared me. - What are you doing, young boy? - I am watching my father work. A gleam of interest shone in his eyes. If you want, you can come to my studio and watch me work. It was a great joy for me. He had gauged me and adopted me. It was indeed some time before, in 1955, that Douglas Cooper re-established the link between my father and Picasso so that they could work together. Indeed Pablo Picasso was looking for someone who could help him to finish a project he had formed, some silver dishes. It is thus thanks to this reunion that François Hugo was to specify his own technique. Based on ceramics belonging to Picasso's "white clay" series, my father made more than twenty dishes in repoussé silver. Over the years I got to know him, to admire him and to discover this kind, generous and funny man. During my first stay in "La Californie" I loved his workshop and I fell in love with his daughter Paloma. This did not escape the master. It was 1957 and since then the friendship and complicity between these two men have never ceased to grow. It is only because, from the point of view of their respective techniques, the two men lived in perfect harmony that the objects they made together reached a level of perfection that is theirs today. Pablo Picasso, like Claes Oldenburg, had a holy admiration for gold. Do you think a work of mine in gold would be possible? Everything you do sells," said my father. And he surprised him with the first sculptures and then the gold medallions. Picasso was captivated! He took the golden objects in his hands and put them in his mouth like a baby. - What are you doing, Pablo? - Tasting. I have never tasted gold before! It tastes good! Jacqueline and my mother Monique looked at them, happy. I was proud of my father and happy to see Pablo laughing out loud. It was the time of the beautiful memories that we keep preciously. Men go away, but their passage is that of the great ones of this world. Pierre Hugo
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