Fifer

~~EDOUARD MANET’S Portrait of Mlle E. G., recognised by many critics as a painting of the young artist Eva Gonzalès when it was exhibited at the Salon of 1870,...

~Manet probably painted Victorine Meurent for the first time in 1862. The earliest painting of her, which he never exhibited, was arguably the only time he painted her as “herself” (fig. 63). Of the large-scale, full-length paintings in which she later figured, some represented her in modern...

Some time in late summer 1912 Picasso took a photograph (fig. 94) at the front door of the villa he had rented for the season at Sorgues. We know that Braque had brought down the “machine à photographie” specially from Paris a week or so before. The picture records the main paintings Picasso had done over the previous two months. On the doorstep, from left to right, are perched the imposing Portrait of a Man, which in time got called the Aficionado (fig. 95), the equally grand …