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Lot Essay
La Suite Vollard is the major landmark of Picasso's long and fertile printmaking career. Not only is it monumental in scope, with 100 etchings produced over seven years, it also acts as a fascinating insight into his inspiration and obsessions as the artist approached late middle age.
The suite is named after Ambroise Vollard (1867-1939), the dealer and publisher whose gallery on the rue Lafitte hosted many groundbreaking exhibitions of the period. It was Vollard who gave the twenty year-old Spaniard his first exhibition in Paris shortly after his arrival from Barcelona in 1901, and was the first to show his Blue Period paintings the following year.
La Suite Vollard was conceived in 1934, when Picasso asked to buy a Renoir and a Cézanne painting from Vollard's private collection. Vollard offered instead to swap the paintings for a group of printing plates, with the rights to publish them. Vollard had already published Picasso's first series of prints, Les Saltimbanques (Bloch 1-15) in 1914-15, and, only three years before, their version of Balzac's Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu (B. 82-94) appeared in 1931 to critical acclaim. The deal was agreed, and in 1936 ninety-seven plates were handed over, to which Picasso added 3 portraits of Vollard early in 1937. The term 'suite' is therefore something of a misnomer. La Suite Vollard is more of a résumé, a selection made by the artist from seven years' work that he considered important, and which he also thought would appeal to Vollard.
The suite is named after Ambroise Vollard (1867-1939), the dealer and publisher whose gallery on the rue Lafitte hosted many groundbreaking exhibitions of the period. It was Vollard who gave the twenty year-old Spaniard his first exhibition in Paris shortly after his arrival from Barcelona in 1901, and was the first to show his Blue Period paintings the following year.
La Suite Vollard was conceived in 1934, when Picasso asked to buy a Renoir and a Cézanne painting from Vollard's private collection. Vollard offered instead to swap the paintings for a group of printing plates, with the rights to publish them. Vollard had already published Picasso's first series of prints, Les Saltimbanques (Bloch 1-15) in 1914-15, and, only three years before, their version of Balzac's Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu (B. 82-94) appeared in 1931 to critical acclaim. The deal was agreed, and in 1936 ninety-seven plates were handed over, to which Picasso added 3 portraits of Vollard early in 1937. The term 'suite' is therefore something of a misnomer. La Suite Vollard is more of a résumé, a selection made by the artist from seven years' work that he considered important, and which he also thought would appeal to Vollard.