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

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

A few days later, Marie-Thérèse Walter came to the45-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.

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

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Although Picasso cast the youngwoman in various roles, the works assembled here, mostly executed between 1931and 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 .

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