The artist (1881-1973). Sebastián Juñer Vidal, Barcelona until at least 1958. Carlos and Xavier Junyer, Perpignan. Frank Gabriel Dereppe, Lugano. David E. Bright (1908-1965), Los Angeles before 1961; bequeathed 1967 to LACMA.

This portrait of Picasso’s close friend and fellow artist exemplifies the artist’s Blue Period of 1901–4. Sebastià Junyer Vidal was a near-constant companion when Picasso was moving between France and Spain in the early 1900s, and the subject of a series of caricatured, bawdy drawings placing him (and sometimes Picasso himself) in the company of sex workers. Here, Junyer Vidal is heavily outlined and solidly worked in the characteristic blues and greens of Picasso’s other paintings from the Blue Period, while the unidentified woman wearing a red flower in her hair is much more hurriedly rendered. In 1975 LACMA’s painting conservators discovered the figure of a dog painted underneath what eventually became the woman and café table, providing some explanation for the difference between the two figures.

As a native Spanish-speaker (Picasso moved to Catalan-speaking Barcelona at age fourteen), the artist inscribed this portrait to Junyer Vidal in the bottom right of the composition using the Spanish spelling of his friend’s name.

Wall label, 2021.

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