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Lot Essay
This portrait of Dora Maar comes from a series of seven executed in 1939 in the workshop of Lacourière. Picasso found colour printing both challenging and frustrating in equal measure, and for three months the technicians at Lacourière were monopolised by the production of these complex portraits. Whilst the proofs were being pulled Picasso hit upon the idea of producing a book containing reproductions of his notebooks, with the Dora Maar portraits serving as the hors texte illustrations. Ambroise Vollard, Picasso's publisher was enthusiastic about the project and negotiations about the paper and design of the binding were at an advanced stage when Picasso suddenly abandoned the whole enterprise. The plates remained in Lacourière's atelier during the war until 1942 when Picasso agreed to help his now impoverished friend by allowing him to print from some of his old plates, which Lacourière did, printing a total of 106 impressions of each portrait. This rare proof, probably printed before the project was abandoned, is the only impression of this plate which Baer records as being signed. By 1942, Dora Maar had been replaced in Picasso's affections by Franoise Gilot, and, although he allowed Lacourière to print from his plates, the artist refused to let him publish the edition, despite the entreaties of Madame Lacourire, who realised that only by publishing them would her husband and his numerous assistants be recompensed for all their hard work three years earlier. The prints were packed up and stored in the artist's studio for the next thirty years where they were re-discovered after his death. The edition was subsequently divided amongst Picasso's heirs, and very few have subsequently appeared on the market.