Night Fishing at Antibes, 1939

     In August 1939 Hitler invaded Poland.  The French were mobilized.  As in 1914, Picasso saw his friends leave and the city fill with troops.  Irritated that he had to interrupt his work on Night Fishing at Antibes, he said jokingly that ‘they’ must have declared war simply to annoy him. 

Night Fishing at Antibes, 1939

     Picasso painted a way of life at the port: night fishing using acetylene lamps; the fish are attracted by the light form a lamp on the bottom of the boat.  With a four-pronged spear, one of the fishermen harpoons a square fish; the other leans dangerously over the water to catch another with his hand.  Two spectators - Dora Maar and Jacqueline Lamba, Breton’s wife - are walking on the quay licking an ice cream cone and pushing a bicycle.  The Mediterranean night is depicted in dark blue and mauve.  Faces and bodies are violently distorted.  The painting surface is divided into geometric elements.  In Picasso’s vocabulary, fish and crustaceans are signs of violence and cruelty - at the heart of daily life, the threat of war.

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