''Famille d'acrobates avec singe'' (English: ''Family of acrobats with monkey'') is a 1905 painting by

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

. It depicts a family of travelling circus performers during an intimate moment. The work was produced on cardboard using

mixed media In visual art, mixed media describes artwork in which more than one medium or material has been employed. Assemblages, collages, and sculpture are three common examples of art using different media. Materials used to create mixed media art incl ...

gouache Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouache ...

watercolour Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...

, pastel and Indian ink. It is held by the

Gothenburg Museum of Art Gothenburg Museum of Art ( sv, Göteborgs konstmuseum) is located at Götaplatsen in Gothenburg, Sweden. It claims to be the third largest art museum in Sweden by size of its collection. Collections The museum holds the world's finest collect ...

in Gothenburg, Sweden. The work was painted at a key phase in Picasso's life, as he made the transition from an impoverished bohemian at the start of 1905 to a successful artist by the end of 1906.

Background

After achieving some early success in 1901, Picasso was still struggling by 1905, living in penury in

Montmartre Montmartre ( , ) is a large hill in Paris's northern 18th arrondissement. It is high and gives its name to the surrounding district, part of the Right Bank. The historic district established by the City of Paris in 1995 is bordered by Rue Ca ...

. The work was painted at a studio that he took on the top floor of the dilapidated building at 13 , which the poet

Max Jacob Max Jacob (; 12 July 1876 – 5 March 1944) was a French poet, painter, writer, and critic. Life and career After spending his childhood in Quimper, Brittany, he enrolled in the Paris Colonial School, which he left in 1897 for an artistic ca ...

termed the "

Le Bateau-Lavoir The Bateau-Lavoir ("Washhouse Boat") is the nickname of a building in the Montmartre district of the 18th arrondissement of Paris that is famous in art history as the residence and meeting place for a group of outstanding early 20th-century artist ...

". The other floors were occupied by other artists, making it a hub of artistic activity. The Cirque Médrano was nearby, and Picasso was inspired by the

harlequin Harlequin (; it, Arlecchino ; lmo, Arlechin, Bergamasque pronunciation ) is the best-known of the '' zanni'' or comic servant characters from the Italian '' commedia dell'arte'', associated with the city of Bergamo. The role is traditional ...

s and saltimbanques, clowns, jugglers and other acts, making the transition from his melancholy Blue Period to his more optimistic Rose Period. Picasso was particularly interested in the life of the saltimbanque during this period. He created several works that depicted circus performers, typically in family groups. This is evident in his gouache and ink work titled ''Famille D'arlequin'' (1905) and the monumental oil on canvas '' Famille de saltimbanques'' (1905). Picasso saw a form of human suffering in the lives of the circus performers, and portrayed them as figures of loneliness. However, in some of his works, he also depicted them as warm, intimate family groups. The woman holding the child in this painting may have been Picasso's girlfriend, Madeleine, with whom he was living from the end of spring 1904. She was named as the model for another Picasso work from this period titled ''Girl in a Chemise'' (c.1905) by Picasso's biographer

Pierre Daix Pierre Georges Daix (24 May 1922, Ivry-sur-Seine – 2 November 2014, Paris) was a French journalist, writer and art historian. He was a friend and biographer of Pablo Picasso. As a young man, Daix was an ardent Stalinist. He joined the French Co ...

. Picasso expert John Richardson stated that Madeleine had become pregnant and had an abortion. It was suggested by Richardson that the woman depicted in ''Famille d'acrobates avec singe'' had similar features to Madeleine and was depicted at the same time that she would have given birth. This painting may therefore reflect Picasso's mixture of guilt relating to the abortion and his longing for a child.

Description

The painting is a mixed media composition on cardboard that measures . It is signed "Picasso" and on the rear "P 1905". The image depicts a young family of circus performers in the midst of an intimate moment. To the left is the father, a thin male acrobat wearing a tight pink

outfit with a bicorn hat. He is sitting on a drum next to the mother wearing a blue dress. They are both looking at a young boy who is being held by the woman. Lower down and further to the right is a

baboon Baboons are primates comprising the genus ''Papio'', one of the 23 genera of Old World monkeys. There are six species of baboon: the hamadryas baboon, the Guinea baboon, the olive baboon, the yellow baboon, the Kinda baboon and the chacma ...

, which is looking up at the family. The figures are circus performers, who are resting off stage between acts. There are splashes of greens and blues in the background, and red on the floor, which is perhaps part of a

circus tent A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclis ...

. The man's orange bicorn hat is unpainted and the colour of the cardboard background. The figures are arranged in a pyramidal composition, based on classical images of the

Holy Family The Holy Family consists of the Child Jesus, the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph. The subject became popular in art from the 1490s on, but veneration of the Holy Family was formally begun in the 17th century by Saint François de Laval, the fir ...

. It is an image of hope, conveyed by the child in the mother's arms. During this period, Picasso decided to push the boundaries of his art with different media. He experimented with oil paints, but also with drawing, pastels and painting with gouache, as is evident by the use of mixed media in this work.

Conservation

Due to Picasso's use of cardboard in this artwork, ''Famille d'acrobates avec singe'' has been the focus of an ongoing conservation project to study the condition of the work and also to understand Picasso's technique and materials. Picasso often made use of cardboard for his 1905 works, due to his poor financial condition, as it was cheaper than other media. However, this choice has had an impact on the condition of the work, resulting in the cardboard becoming fragile and requiring ongoing conservation work.

Provenance

Picasso sold the painting to the Galerie du Vingtième Siècle run by art dealer Clovis Sagot near the gallery of Ambroise Vollard. It was the first of three Rose Period paintings acquired by the collectors

Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris ...

and

Leo Stein Leo Stein (May 11, 1872 – July 29, 1947) was an American art collector and critic. He was born in Allegheny City (now in Pittsburgh), the older brother of Gertrude Stein. He became an influential promoter of 20th-century paintings. Education ...

. The Stein siblings had been living in Paris from 1903, and began collecting contemporary artworks in 1904, buying works by Cézanne,

Gauguin Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fr ...

and

Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir (; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Re ...

from Ambroise Vollard. Sagot sold Picasso's ''Famille d'acrobates avec singe'' to Leo Stein in autumn 1905. The work arrived in Sweden via the Norwegian art dealer Walther Halvorsen and then reached Gothenburg thanks to the art collector Conrad Pineus. It was bought by the

in 1922.

Similar works by Picasso

File:Pablo Picasso, 1905, Acrobate à la Boule (Acrobat on a Ball), oil on canvas, 147 x 95 cm, The Pushkin Museum, Moscow.jpg, ''

Girl on a Ball ''Girl on a Ball'' or ''Young Acrobat on a Ball'' is a 1905 oil on canvas painting by Pablo Picasso, which he produced during his Rose Period. It depicts a group of travelling circus performers during a rehearsal, with a primary focus on two co ...

'' or ''Young Acrobat on a Ball''), Pushkin Museum, Moscow File:Pablo Picasso, 1905, Acrobate et jeune Arlequin (Acrobat and Young Harlequin), oil on canvas, 191.1 x 108.6 cm, The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia.jpg, '' Acrobat and Young Harlequin'',

Barnes Foundation The Barnes Foundation is an art collection and educational institution promoting the appreciation of art and horticulture. Originally in Merion, the art collection moved in 2012 to a new building on Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, Penn ...

File:Family of Saltimbanques.JPG, '' Family of Saltimbanques'', National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

External links

Pablo Picasso, ''The Acrobat Family'', 1905
Göteborgs Konstmuseum

References

Resources

''Family of Acrobats with Monkey''
OVO video {{Pablo Picasso Paintings by Pablo Picasso 1905 paintings Paintings of Montmartre Monkeys in art Paintings of children Collections of the Gothenburg Museum of Art Circus paintings