Lot Essay
Pablo Picasso’s Femme au Fauteuil et au Chapeau, a regal portrait of Dora Maar, is one of the most technically complex print projects the artist ever undertook. It is also, because it was never published, one of the least known. This is a shame, since it exemplifies an aspect of Picasso’s practice that is often overlooked, but without which a true appreciation of his prodigious talent is impossible.
Picasso tended to work intensively, although not exclusively, in one graphic medium at a time. The 1940s saw the beginning of his love affair with lithography, and the late 1950s was devoted to an exploration of linocutting. However, the graphic adventure as a whole began with etching, and the iconic Repas Frugal in 1904. His work as an etcher reached its zenith in the decade 1930-40, with over 300 works in the medium. Picasso’s guide, tutor and friend in this endeavor was the master printer Roger Lacourière, who established his atelier in Montmartre in 1929.
The artist and printer formed a closed friendship as they explored and pushed the boundaries of the medium. This is the aspect of Picasso the printmaker that is rarely given the appreciation it deserves – his refusal to accept that how things were currently done was how things should be done. His restless creativity meant he left each technique richer than he found it, and Lacourière was the perfect collaborator and fellow explorer. It was he who printed masterpieces such as La Minotauromachie (1935) and La Femme qui Pleure (1937), and it was through Lacourière that Picasso met the publisher and dealer Ambroise Vollard, whose name adorns the artist’s most famous graphic series, La Suite Vollard, an example of which will be offered in our Works on Paper sale on May 18.
As this golden decade drew to a close, the artist became intrigued by the challenges of printing in color. Technically, this can be achieved in one of two principal ways – either applying different colors to one plate, or using separate plates for each color. The first approach is laborious, and does not lend itself to consistent results. The second was the one adopted by Picasso and the current example is the black or ‘master’ plate, which was printed in conjunction with plates for red, green, blue and yellow.
To give an idea of the complexity of this project, Brigitte Baer needed no fewer than eleven pages in her catalogue raisonné to accurately describe the changes that each of the five plates underwent (the red in seven states, the green in ten, blue in four, yellow in three and the current example, the black, in no fewer than twelve different states – 36 changes in all) and the various orders in which they were printed.
In the end, despite the many hours spent on the project, Picasso decided not to proceed with an edition. No clear statement has survived as to why, but perhaps the final result was too elaborate, too convoluted, the means by which the image was constructed too evident. As a result very few examples of the various color impressions survive, and this is one of only two impressions known of this state, the eighth, the one in which the composition was largely completed and which gave structure to the entire composition.
Picasso tended to work intensively, although not exclusively, in one graphic medium at a time. The 1940s saw the beginning of his love affair with lithography, and the late 1950s was devoted to an exploration of linocutting. However, the graphic adventure as a whole began with etching, and the iconic Repas Frugal in 1904. His work as an etcher reached its zenith in the decade 1930-40, with over 300 works in the medium. Picasso’s guide, tutor and friend in this endeavor was the master printer Roger Lacourière, who established his atelier in Montmartre in 1929.
The artist and printer formed a closed friendship as they explored and pushed the boundaries of the medium. This is the aspect of Picasso the printmaker that is rarely given the appreciation it deserves – his refusal to accept that how things were currently done was how things should be done. His restless creativity meant he left each technique richer than he found it, and Lacourière was the perfect collaborator and fellow explorer. It was he who printed masterpieces such as La Minotauromachie (1935) and La Femme qui Pleure (1937), and it was through Lacourière that Picasso met the publisher and dealer Ambroise Vollard, whose name adorns the artist’s most famous graphic series, La Suite Vollard, an example of which will be offered in our Works on Paper sale on May 18.
As this golden decade drew to a close, the artist became intrigued by the challenges of printing in color. Technically, this can be achieved in one of two principal ways – either applying different colors to one plate, or using separate plates for each color. The first approach is laborious, and does not lend itself to consistent results. The second was the one adopted by Picasso and the current example is the black or ‘master’ plate, which was printed in conjunction with plates for red, green, blue and yellow.
To give an idea of the complexity of this project, Brigitte Baer needed no fewer than eleven pages in her catalogue raisonné to accurately describe the changes that each of the five plates underwent (the red in seven states, the green in ten, blue in four, yellow in three and the current example, the black, in no fewer than twelve different states – 36 changes in all) and the various orders in which they were printed.
In the end, despite the many hours spent on the project, Picasso decided not to proceed with an edition. No clear statement has survived as to why, but perhaps the final result was too elaborate, too convoluted, the means by which the image was constructed too evident. As a result very few examples of the various color impressions survive, and this is one of only two impressions known of this state, the eighth, the one in which the composition was largely completed and which gave structure to the entire composition.