The theme of the artist and model is one of Picasso’s most famed, and pre-occupied the artist throughout his life. The subject served not only as a means of personal expression, but a lens through which Picasso could examine his own role as an artist, and the relationship between muse and creator.

In the 1970s Picasso turned to the theme with a refreshed vigour, creating numerous drawings including ‘Le peintre et son modèle’. In 1971, Galerie Louise Leiris in Paris held an astounding exhibition of nearly 200 drawings by Picasso in which ‘Le peintre et son modèle’ featured. The drawings, of extraordinary quality and inventiveness, were all created between December 1969 and January 1971, and nearly half were of the painter and model.

In ‘Le peintre et son modèle’ the female is the focus, with her depicted in colour and the artist in black. This is reflective of not only of her importance as an artistic inspiration, but as the subject of the canvas on the painter’s easel. Her monumental statuesque figure towers over the artist, and is painted in far greater detail than the largely silhouetted male. The woman is likely inspired by the artist’s wife and last love Jacqueline Roque, whom he had married in 1961. Jacqueline was his muse for a number of works, particularly those on the subject of artist and model.

Picasso’s drawings from the same 1970s series are now in such museums as Art Institute of Chicago, Centre Pompidou, and Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris.