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拍品專文
Picasso took up the technique of linocut late in his career, at the age of 78. Although linocuts form a relatively small part of Picasso's output as a printmaker (approximately 150 prints from a total exceeding two thousand), he produced some of his most outstanding compositions by this method, in a short burst of activity from 1598 to 1963.
Together with Jacqueline Rocque, Picasso left Paris in 1958 and moved permanently to the South of France, dividing his time between La Californie at Cannes, and the newly acquired Château de Vauvenargues, near Aix-en-Provence. Up to this point, Picasso's involvement with linocuts had been rather casual. He had produced a series of simple posters for the village of Vallauris above Cannes, starting with La Chèvre (Bloch 1257) in 1952. Six years later however, he embraced the medium eagerly, working with a young printer from Vallauris, Hidalgo Arnéra. Never shy of a challenge, Picasso began his new engagement with the technique by interpreting a highly complex old master painting, Lucas Cranach the Younger's Portrait of a Young Girl. The result was astonishing, given Picasso's relative inexperience, but he found the exercise exasperating, because of difficulties in registering six different blocks precisely, one on top of the other. As a result of this frustration Picasso simply re-invented the technique: rather than use separate blocks, he printed from just one; the so-called 'reduction' method.
Before Picasso abandoned the linocut process again in 1963, he produced a group of prints which has come to be known as épreuves rincées (rinsed proofs). They were made by printing the linoblock in creamy white ink, then brushing the image with encre de Chine. Once this had dried he would rinse the print with water. Where the ink sat on top of the printed surface it would be washed away, whereas in the blank spaces the ink had been absorbed into the paper, and would therefore remain. As we can observe in the present portrait of Jacqueline, the result of this puzzling technique is a delicate and light brushstroke image. Every impression is unique as the process of brushing and rinsing the ink with water varies and creates different effects to the image.
Baer records the existence of only five impressions of this beautiful portrait, of which two are dedicated to Jacqueline herself, and one to Georges Bloch. Two others, presumably including the present one, are in private collections.
Together with Jacqueline Rocque, Picasso left Paris in 1958 and moved permanently to the South of France, dividing his time between La Californie at Cannes, and the newly acquired Château de Vauvenargues, near Aix-en-Provence. Up to this point, Picasso's involvement with linocuts had been rather casual. He had produced a series of simple posters for the village of Vallauris above Cannes, starting with La Chèvre (Bloch 1257) in 1952. Six years later however, he embraced the medium eagerly, working with a young printer from Vallauris, Hidalgo Arnéra. Never shy of a challenge, Picasso began his new engagement with the technique by interpreting a highly complex old master painting, Lucas Cranach the Younger's Portrait of a Young Girl. The result was astonishing, given Picasso's relative inexperience, but he found the exercise exasperating, because of difficulties in registering six different blocks precisely, one on top of the other. As a result of this frustration Picasso simply re-invented the technique: rather than use separate blocks, he printed from just one; the so-called 'reduction' method.
Before Picasso abandoned the linocut process again in 1963, he produced a group of prints which has come to be known as épreuves rincées (rinsed proofs). They were made by printing the linoblock in creamy white ink, then brushing the image with encre de Chine. Once this had dried he would rinse the print with water. Where the ink sat on top of the printed surface it would be washed away, whereas in the blank spaces the ink had been absorbed into the paper, and would therefore remain. As we can observe in the present portrait of Jacqueline, the result of this puzzling technique is a delicate and light brushstroke image. Every impression is unique as the process of brushing and rinsing the ink with water varies and creates different effects to the image.
Baer records the existence of only five impressions of this beautiful portrait, of which two are dedicated to Jacqueline herself, and one to Georges Bloch. Two others, presumably including the present one, are in private collections.