5 Most Expensive Pablo Picasso Paintings Sold In Auction

One of the most important figures of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso continuously experimented throughout his career, completely redefining artistic practice and its purpose. Not only a master painter but also a sculptor, printmaker, ceramics artist, etching artist and writer, Picasso’s work matured from the naturalism of his childhood through Cubism, Surrealism and beyond, shaping the direction of modern and contemporary art through the decades.

Featured image: Auctioneer Adrien Meyer fields bids during Christie’s 20th Century evening sale in New York in May 2021. Photo: Christie’s Images Ltd. 2021.

With a body of work regarded as amongst the highest quality in the history of art, it is no surprise that Picasso is among ten most expensive artists ever sold in auction, with several of his works crossing the symbolic threshold of $100 million. At the same time, the prices for his more famous works are continually rising in the secondary market. Femme assise près d’une fenêtre (Marie-Thérèse) from 1932, the masterpiece recently sold at Christie’s New York for $103.4 million, was acquired only eight years ago at a London sale for about $44.8 million, less than half the price offered during the latest May auction. Initially estimated at $55 million, the painting was notably sold in just 19 minutes, in which the bidding war took place between six people.

Let’s take a look at the most expensive Pablo Picasso paintings sold in auction.

Featured image: Pablo Picasso – Femme assise près d’une fenêtre (Marie-Thérèse), 1932. Oil on canvas, 57 1/2 x 44 7/8 in. (146 x 114 cm). Courtesy 2021 Christie’s New York.

Femme assise près d’une fenêtre (Marie-Thérèse), 1932

A stunning and monumental image of Picasso’s golden muse, Marie-Thérèse Walter, Femme assise près d’une fenêtre is among the most iconic images in the artist’s oeuvre. Picasso first introduced his lover as an extraordinary new presence in both his life and his art through a series of paintings executed in 1932.

In this particular work, Picasso focused on his subject’s imposing figure and striking facial features, making his unleashed passion apparent. Fulfilling all three roles of love, model and goddess, Marie-Thérèse is depicted fully clothed, although her sensuality is evident through the voluptuous, swelling contours of the body and drapery. Filling the expanse of the large canvas, she is depicted as a reigning deity-like, with her command breaking through into the viewer’s own space. The artist here transfigured the easygoing, compliant nature and sensual physicality of his subject, providing her instantly recognizable profile with a strongly sculptural quality.

The work was sold at Christie’s New York during their 20th Century Evening Sale on May 13th, 2021 for $103.4 million making it one of Pablo Picasso’s most expensive painting.

Featured image: Pablo Picasso – Garçon à la pipe, 1905. Oil on canvas, 100 cm × 81.3 cm (39.4 in × 32.0 in). Private collection. Captions, via Creative Commons 

Garçon à la pipe, 1905

Depicting a young Parisian working boy, Garçon à la pipe from 1905 is probably among the most famous canvases from Picasso’s Rose period. For his model, the artist used an adolescent known as “p’tit Louis,” who was frequently to be found at the Bateau Lavoir along with, in Picasso’s own words, other “local types, actors, ladies, gentlemen, delinquents….”

In preparatory studies, the artist painted his subject in a variety of positions before painting the final one. The subject is depicted as gazing absently into space, holding his pipe in the left hand and pointing the stem away from himself. Crowned with roses and framed with two large bouquets on the wall behind him, “P’tit Louis” has become a mysterious and haunting presence. The work evokes Femme à l’eventail, another painting from the Rose period, concentrating on a single figure, mysterious in gesture and detached from the everyday world.

Pablo Picasso painting price surprised everybody, when it was sold at Sotheby’s New York on May 5th, 2004 for $104.2 million, surpassing its estimate of $70 million.

Featured image: Pablo Picasso – Nude, Green Leaves and Bust, 1932. Oil on canvas, 162 cm × 130 cm (64 in × 51 in). Private collection (Currently on long-term loan to Tate Modern). Captions, via Creative Commons

Nude, Green Leaves and Bust, 1932

A sensuous and stunning masterpiece, Nude, Green Leaves and Bust from 1932 is another canvas depicting Picasso’s lover Marie-Thérèse Walter, reclining naked. Rarely seen after the 1930s and exhibited only once since it was acquired in 1951, the work was created during a superlative moment in Picasso’s life’s work, while he was at the height of his career and then the world’s most famous living artist.

The work features his muse and lover, rendered in fluid, flowing lines that manifest her easy-going spirit and natural vitality, her apotheosis in the form of the bust set on the sculptor’s modeling stand and the gangly philodendron plant which is located behind her, appearing to sprout from her fertile, nubile body. The circling and undulating lines of her figure stem directly from Reclining Figure (Baigneuse allongée), the aforementioned plaster sculpture of 1931 featured in the canvas.

The work was sold at Christie’s New York on May 4th, 2010 during their Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale for $106,482,500, at the time breaking the previous Picasso’s paintings worth and the world record for any work of art sold at auction.

Featured image: Pablo Picasso – Le Rêve, 1932. Oil on canvas, 130 cm × 97 cm (51 in × 38 in). Private collection of Steven A. Cohen. Captions, via Creative Commons

Le Rêve, 1932

Another work depicting Marie-Thérèse Walter, Le Rêve is a sensual and voluptuous study of the 22 year-old at a time when her relationship with Picasso was at its pinnacle. It is said to have been painted in one afternoon, on 24 January 1932.

Many critics have noted the erotic content of the painting, pointing out that Picasso painted an erect penis, presumably symbolizing his own, in the upturned face of his model. In 2001, the work was sold to casino magnate Steve Wynn for an undisclosed sum, estimated to be about $60 million. In 2013, Steven A. Cohen of SAC Capital had bought the painting from Wynn. It was reported that Cohen had agreed to buy the painting for $139 million back in 2006. However, when Wynn “accidentally whacked the masterpiece with his elbow, leaving a silver dollar-sized hole and scuttling the deal.”

The work was sold in a private sale at Christie’s on March 26th, 2013 for $155 million, making it one of the most expensive Picasso paintings.

Featured image: Pablo Picasso – Les Femmes d’Alger (Version O), 1955. Oil on canvas, 114 cm × 146.4 cm (45 in × 57.6 in). Private collection of Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, Doha, Qatar. Captions, via Creative Commons

Les Femmes d’Alger (“Version O”), 1955

A majestic, vibrantly-hued painting, Les Femmes d’Alger (“Version O”) is the final and most highly finished work from Picasso’s 1954-55 Femmes d’Alger series in which he found inspiration in 19th-century French master Eugène Delacroix, and in the process created a new style of painting. The series was conceived as an elegy to his friend and great artistic rival, Henri Matisse.

A culmination of nearly 100 studies on paper and 14 other paintings created over a period of 2 months, the work is characterized by a packed composition, play on cubism and perspective, violent colors and brilliant synthesis of Picasso’s lifelong obsessions. The work is a response to the Delacroix work, while echoing Matisse in a maelstrom of color and shattered and flattened perspectives.

This Pablo Picasso painting price at Christie’s New York during their Looking Forward to the Past Evening Sale on May 11th, 2015 was a staggering $179.4 million.