DATEBOOK

An Affair to Remember

By Phyllis Tuchman

Published: October 1, 2008

Picasso's painting of Marie-Thérèse Walter "Femme nue dans un fauteuil rouge," loaned to Acquavella by London's Tate Gallery

October 2008 Datebook

Pablo Picasso National Gallery’s Penny Defends Picasso Show Impressionist Auction Comes Up Short in Paris The Block and the Booth Upward Spiral Boudin et Boulle Painting Exhibitions in France Ahmed Alsoudani

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NEW YORK—On a blustery January day in 1927, Pablo Picasso stopped a fetching 17-year-old blonde outside Galeries Lafayette department store, in Paris, and asked her to pose for a portrait.

A few days later, Marie-Thérèse Walter came to the 45-year-old painter’s studio on Rue de la Boetie and sat for him. Eventually, she became his mistress, the mother of his daughter Maya, and his muse.

Acquavella Galleries, in New York, has mounted a nonselling show, running from the 15th of this month through November 29, of works featuring Marie-Thérèse’s likeness, including a dozen oils—many painted in a vivid palette of violets, yellows and greens—a charcoal on canvas, a pen-and-ink drawing and a plaster sculpture.

Although Picasso cast the young woman in various roles, the works assembled here, mostly executed between 1931 and 1932 and on loan from private and public collections, show her languid, somnolent side.

"An Affair to Remember" originally appeared in the October 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's October 2008 Table of Contents .