Picasso Landscapes: Out of Bounds
Audio Exhibition
Boisgeloup
By June of 1930 Picasso had been looking for a bigger space for a few years. He was looking to relocate from his flat in the “Haussmannian” building near the center of Paris, so he bought a small castle in a parklike setting 40 miles from Paris. In the small hamlet of Boisgeloup, at the edge of Normandy, he would escape the urban life, to welcome friends and patrons, to demonstrate his success and to work. He hired a janitor, a maid, a gardener, and he collected fruits and honey that he gave to his visitors. The house was unheated, so Picasso, his wife Olga, and their son Paul spent every weekend from Easter until the end of October in their garden house, staying in Paris during winter. Until then, they had kept the tradition of having their summers on the French Riviera (or in Spain).
It became a family house and, at least in the very beginnings, the family had been happy together, taking pictures, watching movies, playing with the estate’s dogs, rabbits, hens, and pigeons. He used the entire estate; he had a printing press and a studio for painting on the first floor. In the spring 1931, Picasso even started creating artwork in the estate’s stables, where he focused on sculpture. From his studio window, overlooking a chapel and the surrounding hamlet, he painted several landscapes in spring 1932. From here he created pieces that paid close attention to the weather in the region, particularly its rain showers and rainbows.
These landscapes, painted two years after he bought the home, do not depict a new place for Pablo, as he usually did during his summers in Juan-les-Pins, for example. Picasso was paying homage to the tradition of property portraiture. A wide-spread tradition in Europe. Louis XIV would commonly commission portraits of his castles. Joseph Mallord William Turner painted a series of landscapes of Petworth for Lord Egremont, and, in the 1870’s, Claude Monet was commissioned by Ernest Hoschédé to paint his domain in Montgeron, nearby Paris.
It was to show that he was the “king of his own castle,” proof of his social accomplishments.
The happiness that filled this family country house only lasted until 1935 when Picasso asked for a divorce. His wife, Olga, kept the castle. Today, Olga and Picasso’s grandson, Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, owns the place and hosts contemporary artists to carry on the creative spirit of Boisgeloup.