Pick up a Picasso that fits in your hand

Sixty-nine-year-old auctioneer, art dealer and curator Simon de Pury is showing no signs of slowing down. Last year, the Swiss polymath was appointed artistic director of Newlands House gallery, in Petworth, Sussex. He also made a cameo appearance in Netflix drama Emily in Paris. In 2019, he conducted 36 charity auctions around the world, including one in Nur-Sultan, the capital of Kazakhstan, in aid of the Snow Leopard Foundation – an event that paved the way for his latest project. 

A standout lot was an Olympia Le-Tan clutch bag “that went for $90,000”, recalls de Pury of the signature embroidered minaudière. This sought-after version was based on a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting, and de Pury conducted the sale alongside Olympia Le-Tan owner Gregory Bernard. A friendship and collaboration ensued with the OLT design team (Le-Tan herself left the brand in 2018). “I thought it would be a fun project to curate a collection of clutch bags – and that using images from Picasso would be the dream,” says de Pury. “Every time I see an exhibition of his work I come out of it charged up and struck by his genius.” 

That dream is to become 10 wearable art-objects, each available in a limited edition of 77 (from €3,200). The first three to be released, this October, are based upon a 1962 lino-cut, Tête de femme avec un chapeau à pompons, and two paintings: Le Rêve (1932) and Portrait de Dora Maar (1937).

“I have always loved Le Rêve; it is one of the most extraordinary, most sensuous works Picasso ever did,” says de Pury of the artist’s portrayal of his then mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter – and grandmother of Diana Widmaier Picasso. “It’s not just a portrait of my grandmother, it’s a portrait of desire,” she says.  “It’s a portrait of the two of them. It’s a portrait of love. That’s what makes it so special.”

Dora Maar was another of Picasso’s lovers, and for Bernard, this portrait highlights not only the painter’s love of women, but also an interest in fashion. “There are a number of details in the clothes that I think were not random for him,” Bernard says. De Pury concurs: “To see beautiful women wearing these bags, I’m sure that Picasso would have loved that.” 

Diana Widmaier Picasso – herself an Olympia Le-Tan fan who owns several of its book clutch bags – wonders if her grandfather might have sported one. “I’ve been looking at a lot of photographs of him from the ’50s and I was surprised to see him on a few occasions wearing little bags,” she says. “If this bag could be seen on both men and women, that would be the ultimate.”